Carlos Fausto expresses extreme discontent with how the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic
Carlos Fausto is a local affordable housing developer and founder of Fausto Commercial Realty in the City of Miami. The company leads South Florida in urban commercial real estate brokerage, investment, and redevelopment.
During this crisis, Fausto has been working harder than ever to keep his employees working and getting paid, in order to assure their financial stability. While Fausto feels he is improving lives in effective ways, he is beyond disappointed in how the City of Miami has handled this crisis.
“The city has engaged in an astonishing subversion of civil liberties,” said Fausto. The civil liberties he lists are forcing people to close their sources of livelihood, which are their businesses, and forcing people to refrain from visiting their loved ones.
Fausto continues arguing that the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County have been depriving residents of the benefits of their own freedoms by compelling people to refrain from practicing their basic rights—to go outside and make a living for themselves. The compulsion, according to Fausto, comes in the form of police, threats of physical violence through arrests and incarceration, and financial punishment in the form of fines.
The proper way to handle this situation, in Fausto’s eyes, is to have implemented a voluntary lockdown at the beginning of the crisis, before the crisis was of the magnitude it is now.
“But now, especially when the actual threat of fatality is understood to be a fraction by a factor of 10x to 50x less than originally thought, it makes it clear that the actions of our politicians have been for political theater and one-upmanship more than anything else,” said Fausto.
“It is shameful.”
Fausto believes that the City of Miami could have allowed people to return to their day-to-day lives sooner, rather than depriving them of their income and human rights.
His strong feelings against how the City and County handled the response have led Fausto to enact his own efforts to keep his staff financially stable by keeping his business operating. For him, this has been the biggest challenge, but he is happy with the outcome thus far.
“I’m proud to say our work sites have continued and construction crews have remained fully employed. Our office has maintained full employment both in employees and sales staff, and despite the odds, we keep pushing forward,” said Fausto.
Fausto, like most other business owners, is trying his best to keep his business and employees on their feet during this tough time. To the elected officials, he only has five more words.
“Get out of the way.”
