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(webmaster note: I put this story out there not to engender sympathy
for the poor (hispanic) illegal alien - but rather to provide some
hope for those in Southwest Florida. Despite the NewsPress's best efforts
to spin the story - read between the lines - there is reason for hope!)
Hispanic exodus is under way
Workers leave Lee as jobs disappear
By Dan Warner • dwarner@news-press.com • March
9, 2008
In this case, cold, hard statistics don't tell
the story.
"I am not aware of anyone who would track that locally," said Glen
Solier, business development specialist for the Lee County Department
of Economic Development.
"Those people are off the grid. Undocumented," said Susanna Patterson,
economic analyst for the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.
But the oh-so-human snapshots of everyday living are revealing.
Like a weekend soccer league down from 32 teams to 25 because more
than 100 players have had to leave.
Or a church that has cut two Sunday services to one because about
200 former members have returned to their homeland.
Or the western-wear clothier who gave up one of his three shopping
center units and said business is off by 40 percent because customers
are gone.
Put these and other pictures together and the collage tells the
story of Hispanics who are leaving Southwest Florida to find work
or to return to the support of their families back home.
"There is a loss in the number of Hispanics in our communities," said
Robert Selle, director of the Amigos Center, which aids Hispanics
with immigration issues and offers other services in Lee County. "The
underlying reason is economic; the same reason they came here in
the first place."
Population drain
The loss comes from a good portion of Lee County's population. The
U.S. Census Bureau listed the county's Hispanic population at more
than 90,000 - about 16 percent of Lee's 571,000 population - in 2006.
What the statistics further show is that work is gone. Unemployment
in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral region has risen this past year, from
2.7 percent to 6.3 percent.
Many of the lost jobs are in construction, which has been put on
hold as the sluggish market struggles with a glut of unsold houses.
Because many Hispanic construction workers are believed to be illegal
immigrants, because construction and agricultural workers are a mobile
population anyway, because many are single with families back in
their native lands, and because their leaving was often spur-of-the-moment,
no governmental or social service agency is keeping accurate records
of this exodus.
Lee County School District reported a loss of Hispanics in all grades
totaling 388 pupils through January of this school year - this after
growing by almost 3,000 Hispanic students a year earlier.
But the white student population dropped as well. The big difference
was while dropout rates tend to increase as the year goes on in the
upper grades, the Hispanic population was the only one also to lose
ground in the kindergarten through fifth-grade range. It fell by
87 pupils - an indication their families moved from the district,
according to Michael Smith, director of planning, growth and school
capacity.
"Many workers in the construction industry and related industry
are leaving the area and following the money," said Barbara Hartman,
spokeswoman for the state's Career and Service Center in Fort Myers. "It
seems to be an increasing number of people who are temporarily relocating.
I wish we did track that."
Hartman said she knows people are leaving because they tell counselors
when they come in seeking work, saying they need the higher construction
industry wages, which begin at $10 to $11 an hour for the most unskilled,
to maintain their standard of living.
Ripple effects
Bob Droud, co-owner of B and D Plastering and Drywall, knows the
situation from the other side. He's had to lay off about 80 workers,
most of them Hispanic, keeping his staff to about 20.
He's philosophical about the slump, sees Hispanics as great workers
who survive by going elsewhere when jobs are scarce and coming back
when the work resumes.
"You can see it in east Fort Myers, where they rent houses to 10
or 12 people and the 'House for Rent' signs are everywhere," he said.
The empty houses and loss of Hispanic buying power are impacts of
the exodus.
"It affects every sector of the economy," Hartman said. "Many of
the Hispanics have high-level skills. They were plumbers, carpenters,
electricians - the sorts of skills that bring a lot of money into
the economy."
Hard hit
The Rev. Rafael Santiago of the First Spanish Church of God at Ballard
Road and Ortiz Avenue also is optimistic.
His congregation was made up largely of Guatemalans, a staple in
the construction industry. Many have gone home.
He's down about 200 members, cutting from two Sunday services to
one. But the church goes on with 170 to 200 people, and Santiago
is a stalwart.
"Nobody stops the work of the Lord," he said. "Nobody."
Juran Romero organized a soccer league made up mostly of Mexicans.
He has had 20 players each on his teams, but he's down to eight teams
- about 160 players.
"We have had to cancel games because we didn't have enough players," he
said. He figures the Hispanic population has dropped by 20 percent
in the Bonita Springs area.
Martha Vivas, director of the Hispanic program at the Bonita Catholic
Charities office said about 50 of her former clients are gone.
"In a lot of families, the children are citizens because they were
born in the United States so they stay here with their mothers and
the fathers have gone elsewhere to find work," she said.
Some construction workers are moving to the lower-paying agriculture
jobs to earn money to go back to their homelands, according to Gloria
Hernandez, a Hispanic activist with Immigrants United for Freedom
in Immokalee.
"It is piecework, and it takes about a month to pay your rent, buy
food and buy a ticket home," she said.
Alfredo Lopez and Luis Pineda feel the loss. They run a business,
one of what the census says is the 4.4 percent of Lee enterprises
owned by Hispanics.
Lopez works the counter at Bonita Springs' Bonita Bakery, which
his father owns. He estimates the number of Hispanics who've left
Bonita Springs as in the 500 range.
"The situation is pretty bad. There is no choice but to leave," he
said.
The bakery sells lunches, dinner platters and sandwiches. Lopez
figures business is off 70 percent, leaving him alone at the counter,
even on weekends when "there were three of us, and it wasn't enough."
Pineda owns El Forasto, selling western clothing, hats and boots.
"I am doing enough to keep open, but I am not making a profit now.
Just enough to survive," he said.
Pineda also has a house framing business, where he's had to cut
his staff from 47 to 17.
For him, the loss of workers is personal.
His brother-in-law, a laid-off roofer, left three months ago for
Colorado for work. He had been in Southwest Florida for 20 years.
He now sends money home to Pineda's sister and their three children.
It also is personal to Jorge Beltre of Gateway, who was operating
a Fort Myers real estate firm with 15 employees when business dried
up.
He has seen former employees, including relatives, scatter to other
places in America for work and has opened a new office in Santo Domingo.
"We will go where the jobs are," he said. "We will go where there
is work. We do not go on welfare."
A dual citizen, Beltre plans to relocate his family to Miami, where
it will be an easier commute to run his business while in the Dominican
Republic as he keeps his lifestyle in the United States.
Turning the tide
Leonardo Garcia, executive director of the Southwest Florida Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce is banking on a turnaround, saying experts see
an upward spurt by the end of 2009.
"We are hoping they are right," he said.
Garcia is hedging his bets with an aggressive program of encouraging
locals to invest in Latin America, especially his native Dominican
Republic.
This week, he took Fort Myers engineer Dean Martin and Naples developer
Brand J. Black to the Dominican where Martin announced the opening
of an office there and Black said he's investing $30 million in a
70-unit resort.
"In the end, the profits they make will come back here," Garcia
said.
Fighting to stay
A number of Hispanics are struggling to stay until times are better.
Brandy Pagan and her husband, Joel, who's originally from Puerto
Rico and who lost his job at a cleaning service, are in that group.
They moved from Lehigh Acres where they paid $950 a month in rent
to Fort Myers, where they pay $450.
"I am just waiting for the income tax check to get me by for a few
months," she said. "Everybody is waiting for it."
What happens if neither she nor her husband finds work when the
tax money runs out?
"We'll be homeless," she said. "I guess I'll be living with my husband's
family."
It's the same for Santiago Cossio, 40, who came here from Mexico
at 12. He's a laid-off tile setter.
Cossio has two houses in east Fort Myers. He plans to sell one,
live in the other and try to hold out until times are better.
Eight or nine of his friends have moved north to find jobs.
"They used up all their savings and got to a point where they had
to make a decision between sticking around or moving to survive in
another city," he said.
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