MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Journalists coming to Florida to cover Super Bowl XLI will have an opportunity to get a firsthand glimpse of the great disparity of wealth in Miami through a "Reality Bus Tour" being sponsored by some of Miami's largest grassroots organizations including Miami Workers Center, Power U Center for Social Change, and SEIU. The tour will take journalists to the demolished Scott Carver Homes and Umoja Village shantytown in Liberty City, Overtown and end in Little Haiti to hear from displaced residents and low-wage workers struggling to make ends meet. For more information or to sign up for the tour go to .
The tour will include: Fisher Island workers in Little Haiti
Despite serving some of Miami's wealthiest residents and visitors, workers on the private "millionaire island" earn so little that many live in poverty and few if any are provided with health insurance or other benefits that many workers take for granted. The island is so wealthy and exclusive that not only is the ferry the only way onto the island except by private boat, plane or helicopter, but the general public is not allowed on the ferry without permission.
Scott Carver Homes -- The Wall of the Missing
Umoja Village Shantytown
Overtown
Other organizations participating in the tour include: Jobs With Justice, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, the Human Services Coalition, and South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice.
Background:
Miami is a city of extremes: from Fisher Island, a private playground for the rich to a city torn by race riots, terrible living condition, and extreme poverty; sustained by a lack of good sustainable jobs with health insurance. No other city exemplifies the vast gap between the rich and the rest of us as Miami.
This other Miami is real and visible to those who venture out of the main corridors of tourism. Neighborhoods such as Overtown, once known as the "Harlem of the South," were destroyed when I-95 displaced a majority of the residents. Liberty City, once home to a race wall that separated African Americans from whites, embodies townships in apartheid South Africa.
Recent polls have shown that concern over the growing income gap and the need to create stable, well-paying jobs is a major concern for all voters. Three out of four voters who responded to a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll said they see the "growing income gap between rich and poor as a serious problem.
More than 60 percent of residents pay more than half their incomes into housing. The high cost of living combined with a low wage-economy makes it impossible for those who built this city and maintain it every day to afford to live here.
The income gap in Miami is particularly grim. While tourism fuels the Florida economy, many of the front-line employees, who provide services for the tourism, leisure and retail industry, are paid minimum wage or less. In fact, according to a 2005 study conducted by Florida International University professor Bruce Nissen: "Nearly one out of every 10 workers in Miami earns less than $7.15 an hour."
There is one game, one dream, but very different realities.
Service Employees International Union
