Puerto Ricans fleeing Hurricane Maria's wreckage find scarce affordable housing in Central Florida
Ana Mieles wants to be buried in Puerto Rico.
She's told her children as much when she visits them every few months on the mainland. La Isla del Encanto is embedded in her 83-year-old veins, her charming style and her unchallenged status as the life of any party.
"She's always said she wants to die in Puerto Rico," her daughter Elsie Mieles-Hidalgo says in Spanish. "When she comes here, she tells us nobody is going to take her off the island. And now the hurricane has forced her out. She has to leave."
Mieles' family is one of several waiting at the Orlando International Airport for her to emerge from the last day's flight out of San Juan earlier in October. They've brought the grandmother dozens of red, white and blue balloons to try to put a smile on her face. Her daughters say Hurricane Maria devastated Moca, the town where Mieles lives, destroying her home and possessions and leaving thousands without electricity and potable water. For weeks, her children couldn't reach her on the phone. Finally, one of Mieles' daughters traveled to the island to bring her to Orlando – with blood circulation problems, Mieles couldn't risk staying.
"She's depressed," Mieles-Hidalgo says about her mother. "She's really sad because she lost everything. She's going to stay with us in Orlando, but we think she'll want to go back to Puerto Rico when she can. She's going to fight to go back."
Read more: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/central-florida-has-an-affordable-housing-crisis-but-with-the-influx-of-puerto-ricans-fleeing-hurricane-marias-wreckage-leaders-dont-have/Content?oid=7995421