BROWN / UMIAMI
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH DISPARITIES
INTERVIEWS
Nick Kolbas & Sarah Kim
How do social, health, and environmental issues in the Coconut Grove area affect children in particular? To address this question, we interviewed several residents of the area and inquired about their concerns for youth. The following transcriptions offer the perspective of community members experiencing these issues firsthand.
The most common concern amongst residents pertains to the area's changing demographics. Local schools have begun accepting a greater population of children from outside the community, so children who live in Coconut Grove are now forced to attend schools farther away. They see firsthand how the school board plays a role in the broader narrative of gentrification. Environmental issues also pervade the area, with residual pollution from Old Smokey still embedded in much of the infrastructure that existed when the incinerator operated. Schools must be rebuilt in order to protect children from the pollutants such as asbestos that is embedded into the buildings themselves. Furthermore, Covid has exacerbated the issues already present in Coconut Grove, with children lacking adequate socialization and in-person education such that behavioral issues become more prevalent as they age. This necessitates a new emphasis on social events, team sports, and extracurricular activities to prevent enduring developmental issues among the youngest generation.
Williams Armbrister
Mr. Williams Armbrister is a retired Florida Power & Light foreman. He is a lifelong Coconut Grove resident whose family has also lived in the area for many generations.
What are the biggest issues you see affecting the community?
The political arena is making a major contribution to air pollution and a lack of attainable housing. When you say affordable housing, you’re saying nothing. We can set an example here in Dade County in providing housing that is attainable for working class families. We have the power to do that, but the leadership lacks the historical commitment to preserving this community. The reason why homes are being built that are unaffordable is because of the zoning changes, which is the only reason why they’re unaffordable to working class people in this community. If they stop the zoning changes, then we will have more homes that are affordable to working class people. There’s only so much I can do other than speaking what everyone knows to be true.
How are these issues affecting children?
It’s about children? Let me tell you about children. Children are impacted because parents are unable to invest in their education because of the lack of transportation that was promised. The metrorail would have provided from county line road to county line road, that is from Brouer to Monroe County. It’s just a promise that politicians make, and those promises are never delivered. So now parents have three jobs: the one they report to, an additional job on top of that, and the commitment of travel time without a metrorail. Children are impacted because parents just don’t have the time.
Another thing is the schools themselves are changing. We have Carver Elementary K-6, then Carver High School 7-12, but now children in this community cannot attend Carver because students from other communities are being bussed in. Then they’re bussing children out from our community to other schools like Faunce. Parents used to go to PTA meetings to find out how their children are doing in schools right here in the community. Now they’re bussing our children to a second class school in a first class community, and bussing in children to our first class schools in a second class community. But we are a first class community but we are not respected as such, and the children see this. It’s more confusing to them than it should be. Why am I being bussed past a school in my community to attend another school in another community? It is unspeakable. There are no words to describe it.
We just don’t have enough people who are willing to stand up and be willing to be heard, and we have elected officials who make a lot of promises, and a school board who has failed our children countywide. Every school in Miami-Dade county should be an exceptional place for education. If we want our children to feel like they are the caliber of an excellent student, we need to provide them with an excellent education. For all of our children.
How are pollution and environmental concerns affecting children?
Old Smokey was an incinerator right where our fire station is currently, so we live in close proximity to where those stacks were. The area has been polluted for generations, but not as bad as Key Biscane because it was the dumping site from waste from Old Smokey. A lot of Key Biscane is incinerator waste, so the people who are buying those expensive, luxurious homes are completely unaware that they’re purchasing beautiful homes built on wastelands. In Coconut Grove, the generation that was most polluted by Old Smokey—many are deceased and others have health problems associated with the burning of waste in a residential neighborhood. And this pollution has been integrated into the DNA of these children that were born of parents who were living with Old Smokey. The infrastructure, the schools—they need to be torn down and rebuilt because it’s been there from the beginning of the operation of Old Smokey. Asbestos is probably embedded in all of Carver School.
How has COVID affected existing concerns in Coconut Grove?
Covid is just another level to the conditions we’ve been experiencing here all our lifetimes, just like poverty and lack of food and medicine. Children are being behind now because parents still had to work when the kids couldn’t go to school. It’s about our children now, and the political arena doesn’t care about our children or the hard working people in this community. So Covid is just a continuation of this beat that goes on. Twenty years from now we’re going to see the impact of this lack of education. If we don’t start making a change now, there will never be a change. We don’t have to acknowledge that a change needs to be, but our political arena needs to step up to the plate. They need to get rid of the school board, and put that money toward schools themselves. The school board is just a bunch of people being paid a salary to accomplish nothing more than has been accomplished in the past. Covid just gave them an excuse not to do anything! They were already engaged in doing nothing, and Covid gave them an opportunity to receive the same pay for doing less than nothing! How much is that? God have mercy.
What resources are you lacking right now that you think would help the most?
My position is clearly that education is the main thing we need moving forward so our country becomes the country we keep proclaiming that it is. We need the START program now more than ever, and it needs to be expanded into something greater.
Beverly Hepburn
Mrs. Beverly Hepburn is a long-time community health advocate. She has worked in the West Grove area for roughly 40 years and currently is in the position of community health administrator at the Community Health of South Florida, commonly known as CHI.
What social issues are having the greatest impact on children right now?
The community is changing in the West Grove area. A lot of families have been moved out due to developments. Those in low-income areas are experiencing an element of—not quite gang violence or anything, but similar elements you have to protect children from. We have a strong police presence in the area which helps to guide the children and keep them safe.
What environmental issues are having the greatest impact on children’s health?
The biggest thing is that the community is being built up differently than it was in the past. You have a lot of high priced homes being built, and there are not as many kids in the area as there used to be. West Grove was a predominately African American neighborhood, but that’s not so right now because its demographics are changing. You have children from different backgrounds. You still have a sizable African American population, but not as many children. Those children are being brought out of the area to go to school, and other families are moving in and bringing their children to school in the area. It's a very interesting thing to watch happen. As far as the environment, there is a lot of construction going on, but I can’t say there’s been a lot of pollution like with Old Smokey.
How are any health disparities shaping the ways in which parents are raising children?
The Community Health of South Florida where I work has a center in Coconut Grove, but it’s currently under renovation, so parents have to bring their children to South Miami to see a pediatrician. Normally, parents would push their carriages, ride a bicycle, or walk down the street to the Coconut Grove center. Now, they have to drive a car to get to the center where we are now. I know they are waiting for us to get back into the area. We’ve been out since 2019 and are in the process now of constructing the building and trying to get back into the area by the end of 2022. They are bringing their kids over here to South Miami, but not everyone has a car, so I don’t know if everyone is doing so.
Would you characterize the impact of COVID differently in Coconut Grove than other neighborhoods?
COVID has put a lot of fear in people because of the mixed messaging going on. We were coming in and out of lockdown, then vaccines became available so people weren’t sure if it was something they should or shouldn’t do. We had to put all that in layman's terms so it could be understood. Local churches and leaders took it upon themselves to make sure that folks understood the benefit of vaccinations. In our center, I’m an outreach worker so I work with those churches as a liaison facilitating people trying to get a vaccine. The mixed messaging, fear, and unknown of COVID in all neighborhoods had a similar effect with people reluctant to get the vaccine and move around outside. They just didn’t understand how to go about approaching what to do. Centers like ours and people like me got out into the area to try and educate people in churches and community centers so they can make their own decisions. I know a lot of folks in the West Grove area—elderly people—who have passed away because of COVID. I hear about it, and I’m not sure how they approached trying to protect themselves. Maybe that was a part of what led to it, but I don’t know. I just know there were a lot of questions about what to do, and we approached it by trying to educate people as much as we could through local churches and organizations to help people understand the benefits of getting vaccinated when it became available.
What are the community’s biggest concerns for children considering the social and health effects of COVID?
Sending them to school… and not sending them to school. Children have different kinds of behavioral patterns so they are not so restrained as far as interacting with each other. Older children, you can talk to them about it, but little children? No. So my approach to it -- I have a seven-year-old grandson -- he would have to be virtual. A lot of folks pulled kids out of daycare, but some couldn’t and they had to let them go in and because they had no other option in order to be able to go to work. So there was a little mixture of apprehension as far as allowing your kids to go into school and there were some that just could not afford not to send them to school; as soon as they were able to, they let them go in. The schools set up protocols to try to be as hygienically safe as possible for the children that were coming, but the whole idea of going to school virtually became the answer to that situation and you could kind of protect them at home if you had a support system to watch them at home.
What resources do you believe are most important for children in the community to have?
Outdoor activities. I know that some sports teams are back active now and cheerleading for those teams so those kinds of activities have surfaced again and they’re doing pretty well and the kids really look forward to that. In West Grove, we have various parks and lots of activities that go on there and after school. I don’t live in the area so I don’t know what goes on “after hours” per say, but I know they have a very active city after-school program that goes on there. We do an event with the church when school is getting ready to open where we have all of the kids come in and we have people who have grown up in the area come out and speak to the children about how they grew up in the area and what they did as far as going to school and now that they’re in their profession. They give away bookbags and we do those kinds of activities in the community. They have churches with members that are trying to reactivate boy scout clubs and do things through the church with young kids. In the West Grove, we have those kinds of things that I know are going on and kids are benefitting from that -- they’re coming out and they’re actually attending and benefitting from those kinds of things.
As outreach coordinator, what is your current cause that you are advocating for and trying to get the community informed about?
We do health screenings. We’ve been vaccinated and people have been vaccinated so we have protocols in place where we’re actually able to go out now and do blood pressure screenings and glucose screenings. We also do vaccination clinics; we have a mobile van where we’re able to go out and vaccinate and test. We go out and do health education and health screenings. If they need enrollment in insurances such as medicaid or food stamps or things like that, we also do that. So we try and provide those things through our outreach efforts -- health education and any kind of assistance with applications so they’re able to have health insurance for the children; if they need appointments to see the doctor, we’re able to make appointments and register people, and so on and so forth. That’s what we do.