Hialeah tenants protest at landlord’s office as rent is increased by as much as $650

María Rubí earns $14 an hour working as a cashier at a store in Miami-Dade County.

Her salary is just enough to pay the rent of a two-bedroom apartment in Hialeah, Rubí said, where she has lived with her daughter for about 25 years.

But the 57-year-old woman and her neighbors may have to leave the place where her daughter was born and raised.

A Miami-based real estate investment firm, which bought the 20-unit apartment building a month ago, is increasing their monthly rent by as much as $650, or 65%. Effective Feb. 1, everyone’s monthly rent will be $1,650.

On Wednesday, Rubí and her 24-year-old daughter, Rachel Rubí, attempted to visit the landlord’s office inside a mixed-use high-rise in Brickell, carrying signs that said “sit down to negotiate with your tenants.”

Their hope was to hand-deliver a demand letter to their new landlord, Eco Stone Group. But the duo, joined by three supporters, were turned away by building staff.

“All we want is to negotiate as a collective,” said Rachel Rubí, a graphic designer who has been unemployed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wednesday’s impromptu visit came days after a larger group gathered outside the apartment building at 1501 W 42nd St. in Hialeah to protest the hike.

The tenants say the unilateral change is a hardship and people will be left with very limited options for housing in Miami-Dade.

“We have nowhere to go,” María Rubí, who emigrated from Nicaragua, said in Spanish.

Building security staff declined to give the Herald access to the 14th floor, where the office of Eco Stone Group is located.

The company has not responded to numerous requests for comment.

Fighting to stay in their homes

Many of the tenants in the nameless, two-story yellow building have lived there for years. All the units are two bedrooms, but rent prices vary.

After receiving notice of the upcoming drastic hike, the residents organized.

On Jan. 12, about 30 tenants and supporters gathered in the parking lot, holding signs and chanting in Spanish “Neighbors united, will never be defeated.”

They were hoping to catch the eye of the new owners. Instead, notices to vacate in 15 days were delivered the next day to María Rubí and at least two more tenants by Eco Landing Development LLC — in representation of Eco Stone Group — tenants said. Miami-Dade County requires landlords and tenants to give a 30-day notice to end month-to-month rental agreements.

Oliver Telusma, an Equal Justice Work fellow at the Community Justice Project, a Miami-based group of community lawyers that provide legal and strategic support to “social justice movements,” said Wednesday that tenants who received the notices believe their landlord is retaliating against them for protesting.

It is against state law to increase a tenant’s rent or decrease services to a tenant in a discriminatory manner, or threaten to bring an action for possession or other civil action primarily in retaliation against the tenant, according to the Florida Bar.

“We are just trying to encourage the new owners of the property to respect the legal protections that tenants have,” Telusma said.

After they felt ignored by their landlord, Rachel Rubí and her mother, with the support of others, said they planned to pay them a visit.

The group was met by at least four Miami police officers, who instructed them to stay on the sidewalk.

Rachel Rubí made it as far as the lobby of the building — located at 175 SW Seventh St. — to hand-deliver a letter with the tenant’s demands to their new landlord, but she was turned away by building staff because the investment company was not accepting visitors, she said.

The tenant’s demands include a six-month transition period with no rent increases, the rent not surpassing $1,200 once the transition period ends and yearlong leases to avert surprise rent hikes.

Fear of being homeless

María Rubí, the mother of Rachel Rubí, said she was paying $900 a month before the previous landlord raised their monthly rent by $100 in October, two months before they sold the apartment building to Eco Stone Group.

Now, the new landlord is raising their monthly rent from $1,000 to $1,650.

“We can’t sleep thinking that we may become homeless,” María Rubí said.

Carmen Cuzcano, who has been a tenant at the apartment building for 20 years, earns less than $10 an hour doing paperwork and driving for a local business that makes doors and window screens.

Her salary is barely enough to make ends meet after the previous landlord raised her rent in October by about $120, she said.

On Monday, Cuzcano noted that Eco Stone Group is retaliating against her for protesting the new monthly rent of $1,650, a 57% rent increase compared to her current monthly rent of $1,050.

“It’s their vengeance,” she said in Spanish.

Cuzcano also said she isn’t sleeping well since the new landlord announced the rent hikes and that she feels like a “robot” at work.

She lives with her 18-year-old son, who is about to graduate from high school. His dream, she said, is to study architecture, but she is concerned that he may have to abandon it to work full time in order to not lose the only home he has ever known.

Cuzcano avoids talking about money problems with her son because she doesn’t want him to worry, she said. As a Peruvian immigrant, she said she wants to give her son the opportunities she didn’t have.

If the landlord moves forward with the rent hike, Cuzcano added that her only option is to move in with her son to an efficiency-type studio for no less than $1,000 a month.

“I want to give a better life to my son. This has me stressed,” she said, before crying.

Carli Teproff contributed to this report.