Miami demolishes a Liberty City man’s home, putting him on the street during a pandemic
Michael Hamilton, 70, woke up Friday morning in what was left of his Liberty City front yard: a scruffy patch of grass between the sidewalk and the mountain of rubble behind him.
The yard was his bed. There Hamilton remained on Friday afternoon, occasionally leaning on a deformed milk crate. He had nowhere else to go.
Two days before, representatives of the city of Miami had escorted him out of his home. “Then they started with an excavator, that big machine, just chopping the house apart,” he said, pointing to the CAT that they left behind, sitting atop a foundation of broken concrete.
They flattened the house that he grew up in.
The state of Florida has ordered a halt to all evictions, not wanting to throw people out on the street at a time of pandemic and lost jobs. But the city of Miami had no qualms last week about putting Hamilton out of the home that his family owned for half a century. The suspension of evictions applies to those “adversely affected by the COVID-19 emergency,” meaning unable to pay rent. That was not the case for Hamilton, whose family owned the property for decades, the mortgage long since paid off.
The two-bedroom home was deemed unsafe by the city, according to a notice that was from the building department and left on his door a week earlier. “10-DAY FINAL NOTICE TO VACATE,” it said, highlighted in yellow. But in smaller print, it clarified that the demolition could happen at any point within those 10 days. The machinery showed up eight days later. A 2017 lien said tax money was owed — nearly $8,000 — because of an “erroneously received exemption.”
Though he managed to fill a weekender bag with some clothes and important documents, Hamilton wasn’t ready when the demolition crew arrived. He thought he had more time, he said.
Next door, Anitra Dixon and her mother called 311 and homeless shelters to try to find a placement for him, but the shelters weren’t accepting anyone because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
When her cousin, Keith Lorren, arrived for a visit and saw that Hamilton was sleeping outside, the family began pressing for answers. How could this happen? Where’s the help? Where will Mr. Michael sleep tonight?
According to the building department, the Hamilton property had been on its radar as an unsafe structure for the past year after neighbors submitted a complaint. Inspectors visited the house in May 2019 and took photos of both the inside and outside.
Neither the Dixons nor the other neighbors closest in proximity to the Hamilton property said they complained.
In 2019, the department found no evidence that someone was living there, said Building Director Ace Marrero. Windows were broken, doors were missing, there was no electricity or running water and the house had been previously damaged by a fire, he said.
“You have to understand that the demolition of especially a single-family home is a very, very, very last resort,” Marrero said. Properties make it to his department because they pose high risk to safety, he said.
The neighbors interviewed by the Miami Herald said they noticed nothing that dire.
Built in 1941, Hamilton’s home was long a fixture of the Liberty City community. After his family bought the house in the ‘60s, his mother, Gussie Mae Hughes Hamilton, ran a daycare there for some time.
Michael Hamilton grew up in the home at a time when the community did not have many residents who looked like him, and Miami was just beginning to racially integrate. He was among the first Black kids to attend Allapattah Junior High School, he said.
After Gussie died at age 98 in Gainesville, he had no immediate family left. Both his father, Malachi, and brother, Bernard, had already passed. The deed to the Miami house had been signed over by Gussie to his cousin, Richard Anderson, who, according to the woman’s obituary in the Gainesville Sun, was her caretaker.
Since it is Anderson’s name on the deed and not Hamilton’s, the department made several attempts to reach Anderson over the past year at a post-office box listed on the property records. But it’s not clear if the notice was received.
The Miami Herald was unable to make contact with Anderson.
Marrero’s staff didn’t know Hamilton was living on the property until the company contracted for the demolition showed up at the house, the building official said. He was asked to leave anyway.
Neighbors were worried about their own well-being — not from the condition of the house, but from the demolition. Dust kicked up by the machinery was seeping into the Dixons’ windows and they didn’t know whether the house had been tested for asbestos.
Marrero didn’t either. Asbestos testing was the contractor’s responsibility, he said, but he promised to make sure the dust issue was addressed immediately.
By Friday night, Lorren had organized a Facebook donation drive to fund a hotel stay for Hamilton and raised $3,000.
“My grandmother was able to purchase a home out of the legacy that [the Hamiltons] started,” Lorren said. “For them to treat him this way and have the first Black family in this community sleeping outside in the grass is disrespectful,” Lorren said.
Gregory, who has lived on the other side of the Hamilton home for over 20 years and preferred that only his first name be used, shared similar sentiments. With Wynwood coming in, “the neighborhood has changed drastically,” he said. Michael Hamilton is part of “the old school” that’s left, he said.
He was shocked to see Hamilton’s home getting knocked down as he pulled into his driveway after work on Wednesday afternoon. Not knowing the reason for the demolition then, he feared that maybe his house was next.
This story was originally published August 29, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
