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📅 Homestead Area Events 

🏥 Homestead Hospital Is Getting a Four-Story, 134,000-Square-Foot Expansion

🎺 How Mariachi Music Helped Transform a Leisure City School

🏠 Miami-Dade Opens a New Path to Up to $150K in Homebuyer Assistance

🚌 Could Your Early-Morning Bus Disappear? Miami-Dade Is Considering Service Cuts

⚖️ Former Homestead Therapy Intern Faces Felony Charges Involving Clients

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September 6

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Homestead Hospital is preparing to get much bigger as South Dade's population continues to grow. Baptist Health is building a four-story, 134,000-square-foot tower that will add inpatient capacity and expand surgical and diagnostic services, and the project received another boost this week with a $1.5 million gift from Robins & Morton. Baptist Health says Homestead and the surrounding South Miami-Dade area could add about 50,000 residents in the coming years, while the hospital already handles nearly 10,000 admissions and more than 3,000 surgeries annually.

The Scoop: More people moving south means more demand for healthcare close to home, making this expansion one of the more consequential growth projects underway in Homestead.

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Something interesting has been happening at Leisure City K-8 Center, and it involves much more than learning to play an instrument. The Homestead-area school expanded from STEM to STEAM and embraced multicultural arts programs, including Florida's first mariachi magnet program. A recent case study found dramatic improvement in school climate, with 100% of surveyed students saying they liked coming to school during the 2024-25 school year, up from 48% the year before.

Principal Walter Hall and Arts Access Miami have used community partnerships and culturally relevant arts programs to build student engagement, and the school has since earned recognition for its progress. Hall hopes the momentum could eventually help Leisure City K-8 expand into a K-12 campus.

The Scoop: This is a good reminder that improving a school isn't always about another test or textbook. At Leisure City K-8, giving students something they genuinely wanted to be part of helped change how they felt about school.

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If the down payment is what’s keeping you from buying a home, Miami-Dade has opened a program worth checking. The county's Welcome H.O.M.E. initiative is accepting applications from eligible households, with selected buyers potentially qualifying for up to $150,000 in assistance.

There is one major catch: this initial round involves just three newly constructed homes, and once 200 eligible applications are received, qualified applicants will enter a public lottery to determine selection order.

The Scoop: Don't read “$150,000” and assume everyone gets a check. Eligibility requirements apply and only three homes are available in this round. If you're interested, check the requirements sooner rather than waiting until the application deadline.

Check eligibility through Miami-Dade County

Could Early-Morning Bus Service Disappear?

If your workday starts before sunrise and you depend on public transportation, this one matters. Miami-Dade is considering budget changes that could eliminate departures before 6 a.m. on dozens of bus routes and eliminate some routes entirely.

For South Dade workers already dealing with long commutes, losing early service could make getting to hospitals, hotels, restaurants, airports and other early-shift workplaces considerably harder.

The Scoop: These cuts aren't final. Miami-Dade's next budget hearing is September 17, so riders still have time to understand which routes could be affected and make their voices heard.

Former Homestead Therapy Intern Faces Felony Charges Involving Clients

A former mental-health therapy intern at a Homestead addiction treatment facility is facing felony charges after authorities accused her of having inappropriate sexual relationships with clients under her care. Police say the alleged conduct occurred while she was working at New Hope CORPS on Krome Avenue, and the facility terminated her after learning of the allegations and cooperated with investigators.

The Scoop: These are allegations, not a conviction. The former intern surrendered to Homestead Police and the case is now moving through the court system.

Big news, Homestead.

Homestead Local Scoop is more than content — it’s community.
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​So we’re launching the Homestead Local Scoop Dinner Club with DNNR.
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You take a quick quiz, get matched with 5 like-minded locals, and meet for dinner at a local restaurant.
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First dinner: September 23, 6:30 pm in Homestead.
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We’ll handle the matching and logistics. You just show up, meet your table, and enjoy dinner.🍽️

We’re choosing local businesses to spotlight in an upcoming issue of Homestead Local Scoop. If you’d like to be considered, it only takes a quick 5-minute guided online interview you can complete from your phone whenever it’s convenient.

Interested in being featured? Click below to get started.