As the Florida foreclosure crisis continues to hit property owners, renters of those properties are often the most vulnerable and least considered . For the past 3 weeks, tenants of Golf Villas apartment complex in New Smyrna Beach, Fl were forced to live without water. The owner of this 20 apartment complex mostly of working class families went into foreclosure and has not paid the water bill even though tenants had been paying the rent. Tenants were never informed of the foreclosure or neglected water bill. Many self evicted themselves while others purchased bottled water to get by. Residents brought it to the City Commissioners who were reluctant to urge the Utilities Commission to work with these tenants to turn the water back on.
It was not until members from the Central Florida Jobs with Justice coalition and tenants came together to fight back and get their water turned on. Local faith and community leaders, students and labor leaders from the Volusia/Flager County AFL-CIO held a press conference this pass Wednesday to build pressure on the Utilities Commission to follow through with the legal proceedings of appointing another person responsible for the account so tenants could have running water. That was enough to force the Utilities Commission to meet with advocates and start working on getting the water turned on. Even then, when the legal process was complete, the Utilities Commission stalled until Wednesday night to send someone to turn it on for residents. A representative from the Utilities Commission stated ” So what, what another night without water?”
Our response: Another night without justice! Residents finally got the service back on in less than 24 hours. Due to the major oversight of responsible parties in this incident, residents are owed up to triple pay in rent plus damages . This was a small but powerful example of how solidarity makes all the difference in winning. One resident asked “What does it take for people like me to get justice?” Our response: Whatever it takes, we’ll be there!
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