Miami's Public Housing Debacle

"When Caprice Brown and her three children were evicted six years ago from their rundown apartment in one of the most depressed areas of Miami, they were promised a sparkling new housing development that would revitalize the community.

Instead, they ended up in a single room of her aunt's already crowded house nearby. With little money for food and stripped of housing benefit vouchers, she slept on the floor while her sons aged 13 and 10, and her 11-year-old daughter shared the room's only bed. Then in January, she and her children moved into a private rental apartment.

Six years after the evictions, the 42-acre site in Liberty City that used to be their home remains demolished, fenced off, and abandoned.

Ms. Brown is among thousands of victims of one of the nation's biggest housing scandals, which saw millions of dollars of public money lost, squandered, or stolen while the Miami-Dade Housing Agency failed to deliver on promises of affordable new accommodations for its poorest citizens.

Hundreds of families were made homeless or simply disappeared from the system. They were waiting for help from an agency riddled by mismanagement and corruption, which is now the subject of a federal investigation that could have implications for low-income housing policy nationwide."