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Dear Haiti Friends,
TPS ends today for approximately 330,000 Haitians living and working in the US. It’s a disaster for them because there are no jobs or homes or spare food waiting for them in Haiti. In addition, they will be targets for kidnapping because they have friends in the US and have been working for US wages for many years, almost always supporting families back home. (Foreign remittances account for $3-$4billion annually sent home by the Haitian diaspora.) They will be a huge strain on Cap Haitian, where they will put an enormous strain on that economy competing for scarce housing, food, and medical care. And not all Haitians will welcome them back, as they are thought by some to have received special favors in being allowed to leave.
The losses for the US are huge, too. Haitians on TPS pay $805million annually in Federal and payroll taxes and $755million in State and local taxes, including sales taxes. More importantly, they provide many vital services — a large number serve as home health care, nursing home, or hospital nurses, especially in Boston, New York, and Florida, and many others are custodial or food workers in the health care system. Many are taxi drivers. Many are hospitality service workers. There aren’t job applicants waiting to replace any of them. There is already a nursing shortage; this will make it worse. https://www.nbcmiami.com/
I know I have asked this of you many times before, but please write or call your senators again today. I’ve just done it. Even for the senators who are already in favor, the expiration of TPS today means they need to bring the bill to a vote NOW before the round-ups begin. The house version of the bill has already passed. Here’s my message — feel free to copy or adapt: “I write again to plead with the Senate to advance the bill creating new TPS status for the 330,000+ Haitians who are losing their status TODAY. This is not only a disaster for them but a disaster for us. The healthcare worker shortage, already acute, will be a disaster without the skilled Haitian nurses and caregivers who fill thousands of jobs not to mention the health care food service and maintenance workers. Haitians on TPS pay their taxes, more than a billion and a half dollars every year in Federal, payroll, State, local, and sales taxes. I know you already know all of this. Please, please convince your fellow Senators to put this up for a vote now, following the lead of the bipartisan support in the House.”
Thank you for considering this request.
In other news: I have been trying to puzzle out the grant situation with the World Food Programme. The link came from an agency which provides information on grants, and their initial article seems a little misleading. Digging down, the grant application was not actually for school lunches, but for NGOs in Haiti with the capacity to administer and monitor the programs on-site including distribution. I hope they are able to find a group with that capacity! Meanwhile, it does indicate that they are still providing food in Haiti, so it’s worth exploring WFP directly if your partners do not already receive food from that source. World Central Kitchen is also providing some feeding programs, sourcing the food and the cooks locally, and Food For the Poor has also been able to function with some interruptions. Chasing grants is hard work, but sometimes worth the effort. If any of you would like to share stories of your successes or failures with these of other programs currently functioning in Haiti, I’d be glad to pass them along.
Finally, below my signature, some good news from the Trade School at St. Marc, Trouin, high in the mountains between Leogane and Jacmel, where another group of skilled workers and artisans has graduated.
Yours,
Serena
Serena Evans Beeks
Canon Serena Evans Beeks, D.Min.
US Coordinator, Haiti Episcopal School Partnerships
National Association of Episcopal Schools
