For John, living in a room in a shared house without even a door for privacy was what he found himself dealing with when he first arrived in Ohio four years ago.
“I was afraid to tell my wife, who was still in Florida at the time,” John says. “When I spoke to her on the phone, I closed the video so she wouldn’t see what it was like.” John, who did not want to give his real name out of fear of the consequences, paid $50 a week for a room in a house that was also home to a family of Haitians and others who came and went regularly.
Living in substandard conditions, especially for recent arrivals to Springfield, is a common, if little talked about, experience among the Haitian community.
“We’ve seen things like no heat or hot water in winter; issues with leaking roofs and walls collapsing; multiple families renting rooms in a larger home; dangerous water and electrical configurations – things that could cause a serious fire,” says Ryan Davis, a staff attorney at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (Able), a non-profit law firm.
Even as Haitians in Springfield struggle with poor housing arrangements, the community has been blamed by many longtime residents and sections of the national media alike for causing rents to increase across working-class parts of the city.
But reports and research suggest that hard-charging landlords and property companies rather than immigrants may be responsible for the rising cost of housing.
Reuters has reported that the number of affordable housing vouchers fell in recent years in Springfield, as landlords moved away from offering their properties to tenants through government support programs and into market-based rents, where greater profits can be made. That move means that there are several hundred fewer properties now available to low-income and in-need Springfield residents.
“I don’t think it’s fair at all that the Haitian community has been targeted as a reason for rising rents,” says Davis.
Conversations with several Haitian workers, legal representatives and community leaders in Springfield found that First Diversity Staffing, a temporary staffing agency, has played a key role in securing employment for Haitian and other immigrant laborers from Central America to work at distribution facilities, warehouses and farms in the Springfield area.
All the while, a company called Ten Enterprises, whose registered agent is a person named George Ten, has been buying up dozens of properties in and around south Springfield, where the majority of the city’s Haitian population lives. George Ten is also the CEO of First Diversity Staffing.
All 48 properties owned by Ten Enterprises – typically smaller and older residential homes – were purchased since 2021, coinciding with the height of the Haitian immigration wave to Springfield. By March of that year, a USA Today report found that Springfield had the fifth “hottest” housing market in the US, despite having a median home price of just $145,000.
While owning a large number of properties is perfectly legal, and landlords say renovating and renting out houses contributes to the city’s tax base, many Springfield residents have taken to public forums to ask that property companies help contribute to the increased costs associated with managing an influx of new residents.
Emails and phone calls to First Diversity Staffing, asking if it is providing financial or other support to local schools and healthcare centers left to deal with the fallout of a major population increase, were not answered.
Ten Enterprises isn’t alone.
Garlind Properties owns 324 homes or parcels in Clark county. About 260 of those properties were purchased since 2019 and many of its tenants, according to a New York Times report, are believed to be Haitian immigrants.
A member of the Haitian community who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the housing issue says Garlind Properties is infamous for overcharging Haitians for housing. The company also has a number of negative reviews posted online calling out the poor standard of its properties. Voicemails left with a phone number associated with Garlind Properties were not responded to.
Aside from housing issues, immigrants are also facing challenging employment conditions. When companies such as Amazon, Dole Fresh Vegetables and Topre, a Japanese auto parts manufacturer, struggled to find labor in the aftermath of the pandemic, temporary staffing agencies found hundreds of Haitian workers to fill the gaps.
But that created insecurities for Haitians, too.
“The biggest issue we see with the temp agencies is that – and it’s not illegal, unfortunately – workers are not given benefits, they’re not given time off,” says Katie Kersh, a senior attorney at Able.
“It’s just much harder for people who are trying to build lives. It prevents them from having a lot of things they need to get ahead.”
A Dole Fresh Vegetables representative didn’t directly answer the Guardian’s questions asking if the company was assisting the Springfield community in handling its growing population, instead saying: “At Dole we care for and support all of our employees and communities.”
Despite the challenges in housing and employment, some changes are taking shape.
Last year, the city of Springfield established a rental property registry to keep tabs on negligent landlords and ensure that properties were up to livable standards.
What’s more, this year the building of about 1,200 housing units in a west Springfield suburb was announced in a move city authorities believe would ease the pressure on housing supplies.
However, single-family homes in the development are expected to start at $300,000, a price that’s out of reach for many Springfield residents, where the median household income is about $45,000.
Since the bleak early days of life in Springfield, John’s accommodation status has since taken an upward trajectory. Today, he owns his own home and has become a realtor, though the memory of the first months in Ohio hasn’t left him, especially as he sees so many others demeaned and singled out for being in the same situation today.
“The houses on this side of Springfield were really bad,” he says.
“People are afraid about this situation.”
