Adrian Alberto Madriz will never forget the smell of burning mattresses.
After Hurricane Andrew — a violent, 1992 Category 5 storm that left close to 100 people dead and several hundred thousand more homeless — destroyed his family’s suburban Miami apartment building, 4-year-old Madriz and his parents were forced to evacuate to Orlando.
They later returned to a horrific scene — and a smell — forever seared into the young Madriz’s memory.
“When we came back to Miami, all of the windows in our apartment house had been completely destroyed,” he recalled. “The furniture that was inside had been sucked out because of the enormous amount of pressure from the wind, and the entire parking lot was littered with mattresses and insulation. I’ll never forget the smell of rotting insulation after the storm. Every single time I smell it now, it brings me back to that day and the very painful memories of that moment. That was my first very severe experience of housing insecurity.”
Another pivotal episode took place during his first job after college as a housing organizer with the Miami Workers Center, whose mission is “to build the power and self-determination of south Florida’s most oppressed communities.” His first job for the nonprofit was “to go knocking on doors in a poor, historically Black neighborhood called Liberty City.”
Approaching the assignment with what he later realized was an unfounded fear of violence based on the area’s high crime rate, he experienced the people as “incredibly open and hospitable.”
“When I would ask them what kind of housing issues they were dealing with, they would invite me to come inside and take a tour,” Madriz recalled. “The things that they showed me were shocking. I saw black mold growing on the ceiling, the floor and the walls. I saw sewage that had backed up into the bathtub, creating a terrible smell throughout the house. There were rats, roaches and every single kind of plague you could think of.”
Why, he wondered, were his neighbors in Miami living in unsafe housing in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world?
Because the whole situation struck Madriz as immoral — with “forgotten neighborhoods” being allowed to fall into neglect while landlords avoided prosecution— he decided then and there to take action.
And that’s when SMASH, for which Madriz serves as co-executive director, was born.
SMASH (Struggle for Miami’s Affordable and Sustainable Housing), the first community land trust and affordable housing co-operative in Liberty City, began in 2015. Madriz and Berlinda Dixon got together with other residents of Liberty City to do something about slumlords who were taking advantage of the neighborhoods.
Using a community land trust model, SMASH provides sustainable and preserved land that the community controls and is building power to make housing a human right in Miami.
Since its founding, SMASH has been successful in acquiring three properties, with its first housing project becoming operational in 2022.
But the founders’ collective dreams might not have become a reality without assistance from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Madriz said that a PC(USA) grant in community development was “one of the principal reasons we could open our first housing cooperative.”
SMASH’s role in addressing the unjust systems that perpetuate poverty doesn’t end with the provision of housing.
“The way we structure our housing is that when you live with us, you don’t just get affordable housing, but you also get trained to be a housing justice organizer,” Madriz said. “In exchange for affordable housing, you also volunteer some of your time to do outreach, to put together events and to manage campaigns.”
As Madriz boldly envisions a future when good-quality, climate-resilient housing will be understood as a human right, he and his colleagues aim to have 1.5 million Miamians sign on to SMASH’s Miami Housing Justice Agenda by the year 2030.
Yet although he knows it’s a challenge, Madriz sees it as achievable, thanks, in part, to support from One Great Hour of Sharing.
“In an environment, especially nowadays, in which there is a lot of risk-averse type of philanthropy, the PC(USA) really took a leap of faith in what we were doing,” said Madriz.
Emily Enders Odom, Former Associate Director of Communications, Presbyterian Life & Witness (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Tihitina Dora, 1001 NWC Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Laura Buchleiter, 1001 NWC Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, you said, “Let the little children come to me.” May we, in all that we do, open ourselves to children of all ages, respecting their human dignity and helping them to grow into your love. Amen.
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