Community Equity Lab

The Community Equity Lab integrates anti-poverty and civil rights advocacy and grassroots organizing strategies with university-wide, interdisciplinary resources to advance social justice initiatives at the neighborhood intersection of race and inequality in the areas of economic development, education, health, housing, municipal equity, and the natural and built environment. The Lab houses two projects: the Health Equity Project and the Housing and Community Economic Development Project.

Lab Projects

Health Equity Project

Launched in 2020 in collaboration with the School of Medicine’s MD/MPH Program, the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a coalition of community partners, the Health Equity Project engages in community-centered health law and policy research, advocacy, and education.

Housing and Community Economic Development Project

Created in 1999 initially as a joint venture with the School of Architecture’s Center for Urban and Community Design to develop interdisciplinary teaching, research, and neighborhood technical assistance models promoting municipal equity in the built environment, the Housing and Community Economic Development Project has grown into a broader collaboration with a coalition of community partners, including Black churches, civic associations, and tenant and homeowner organizations, seeking to (i) halt the eviction, displacement, and resegregation of vulnerable tenants and homeowners; (ii) negotiate community benefits agreements; (iii) reform segregative land use and zoning policies; and (iv) build and rehabilitate fair, affordable, and integrated housing.

Former HCEDP Project:
Racial Justice Grant: Voting Rights in Miami's Historic Coconut Grove Village West

Grant awardees address inequities, promote racial justice

Rights Education, Research and Law Reform Campaigns

Open All Tabs

Trolley Garage Campaign

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of pro se complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Office of Civil Rights against the City of Miami, City of Coral Gables, and Miami-Dade County under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to halt the discriminatory siting of a City of Coral Gables bus depot in Village West.
Ward v. City of Miami

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of state litigation to halt the discriminatory siting of a City of Coral Gables bus depot in Village West.
East Gables Trolley Access Campaign

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of extension of municipal trolley service to residents of the historically segregated MacFarlane Homestead Subdivision and the Golden Gates District of East Coral Gables.
Old Smokey Incinerator Steering Committee

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of the investigation and cleanup of
contaminated parks in the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County, including petitions filed with
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry seeking a public health assessment of the harmful effects of environmental exposure to
hazardous waste from the former City of Miami Incinerator No. 2 (Old Smokey).
Styles v. City of Miami

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of state class-action litigation17 against the City of Miami to remediate parks and properties contaminated by Old Smokey Incinerator ash, compensate damaged homeowners and injured residents, and establish a health registry for individual and community medical monitoring.
Miller v. City of Fort Myers

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in cooperation with the Environmental Justice
Clinic and in support of federal class-action litigation against the City of Fort Myers under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to remove and remediate an arsenic “Sludge Dump” in
the historically segregated neighborhood of East Dunbar.
Day Avenue 8

Rights education, fact investigation, administrative agency testimony, and research in cooperation
with the Environmental Justice Clinic and in support of the negotiation of restrictive covenants
prohibiting commercial uses of property and providing 14 units of affordable, workforce, and low-
income housing and relocation assistance for tenants residing on eight land parcels located on Day
Avenue in Village West.
Housing and Community Development Task Force

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of a fair-and-affordable housing
coalition of Black churches, civic associations, and tenant and homeowner organizations to combat
the mass eviction and displacement of low-income tenants and homeowners in Village West.
Grove Rights and Community Equity, Inc. (GRACE)

Facilitated the incorporation of a nonprofit organization in cooperation with Legal Services of
Greater Miami to advocate for fair housing and equitable community economic development
through the negotiation of community benefits agreements, land use and zoning policy reform, and
federal and state litigation.
GRACE, Inc. v. City of Miami

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in support of federal voting rights litigation in
cooperation with the ACLU of Florida challenging municipal racial gerrymandering under the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
GRACE, CGVW, HOATA, CGMA, and Nnamdi v. City of Miami

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in cooperation with the Community Justice
Project and in support of a civil rights administrative complaint filed with the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development against the City of Miami challenging discriminatory land use,
zoning, and demolition policies and practices under the Fair Housing Act.
Grove Rights and Community Equity, Inc. v. City of Miami

Rights education, fact investigation, and research in cooperation with Lomax Legal PLLC and in support of civil action under the Florida Public Records Act seeking the disclosure of a memorandum prepared by the City Attorney’s Office of the City of Miami relating to low-income housing displacement in Village West.
Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church Summer Freedom School

Curricular development, historical research, and classroom instruction in support of a youth education summer program for K-12 students in cooperation with Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance, and other Village West stakeholders.