Insight: Haitian immigrants fueled Springfield's growth - and now a US presidential debate (updated)

Zillow

11/09/2024 20:33

(New details of Biden administration immigration program in
paragraph 34)

        * 
      Immigrants reshape Springfield, boosting economy but
causing
growing pains
    

        * 
      Local officials and police refute false claims about
Haitian
immigrants
    

        * 
      Springfield's population growth brings challenges and
opportunities
    

  
    By Howard Schneider
       Springfield, Ohio, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Rose Joseph and
Banal Oreus followed different paths from Haiti to this
struggling Midwestern industrial city that suddenly finds itself
at the center of the U.S. presidential race.
    Joseph arrived in 2022 after landing in Florida two years
earlier to escape violence in Haiti, journeying north on word of
good job prospects. Oreus, after stops in Brazil, Portugal and
Mexico over an eight-year stretch, was drawn to Springfield in
2023 by family and friends who had already found their way here.
"The first motivation was job and work opportunities," Joseph,
now an Amazon warehouse worker who also does seasonal tax
preparation work, said in an interview weeks before Tuesday
night's presidential debate.
The arrival of Joseph, Oreus and as many as 15,000 other
immigrants from Haiti over roughly the last three years has
reshaped this city of 58,000, offering some promise of economic
revival along with growing pains. It also has unwittingly thrust
Springfield into the middle of a national conversation about
immigration, the economy and race - with Republican candidate
Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance recirculating what
local police and city officials say are false claims of crimes
and atrocious acts being committed by Haitians.  
    After a half-century of decline, data show the rapid
population rebound  has had a notable impact in Springfield.
    Enrollment in Medicaid and federal food assistance and
welfare programs surged. So did rents and vehicle accidents,
including a collision last year when a Haitian without a U.S.
driver's license drove into a school bus, killing 11-year-old
Aiden Clark and injuring 26 other children.
    The number of affordable housing vouchers fell as landlords
moved to market-based rents that were rising in the face of
higher demand, a blow to existing residents relying on them.
    What didn't happen, according to interviews with a dozen
local, county and officials as well as city police data, was any
general rise in violent or property crime. Wages didn't
collapse, but surged with a rising number of job openings in a
labor market that remained tight until recently.
    In early July, days before he was tapped to be  Trump's
running mate, Vance read aloud a letter from Springfield
officials as he quizzed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a
congressional hearing on whether immigration added to inflation
by increasing housing costs, and whether a rising supply of new
workers hurt others by holding down wages.
    What was happening in Springfield was "a very real example
of this particular concern, straight from the horse's mouth,"
Vance said. 
    Powell responded that those effects might be apparent in
some places, but overall the rising labor supply in recent years
had helped grow the economy and slow inflation. And in the long
run, he said, the impact was "kind of neutral" because markets
adapt.
    More recently, Vance and other Republicans have
amplified false claims aired by some residents at weekly city
commission meetings. City commissioners in their public comments
have pushed back, noting that the vast majority of Haitians are
in the country legally and have a right to live where they
choose.
    Springfield police also responded forcefully: "There have
been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being
harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant
community," they said in a statement. "Additionally, there have
been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal
activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents'
homes."
Still, Trump aired those falsehoods including the baseless claim
that immigrants are eating pets in his debate Tuesday night with
his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Biden White House earlier on Tuesday condemned the viral
misinformation, saying such remarks sought to divide Americans
through lies and was based on racism.
       
    'A ROCKY SEASON'
    Data from Springfield's experience of the last few years
paints a nuanced picture of the impact of rapid population
growth.
Local rents did increase at the third-fastest pace among cities
from May 2022 through the end of 2023, rising at a 14.6%
annualized pace, data from Zillow shows. But the market also
appears to be normalizing: Rents this year have risen at a
modest 3.2% pace, 68th fastest among 400 cities sampled.
Local wages were slow to take off during the post-pandemic job
market reshuffling, data from Chmura Economics & Analytics'
JobsEQ shows. But through the years associated with rising
Haitian immigration, wages grew at a more than 6% annual pace
for more than two years, about twice as long as seen nationally.
    As Powell suggested, the process may have run its course.
With the national labor market also cooling, wage growth in
Springfield is down to 1.1%, job openings remain strong but the
pace of hiring has slowed, and the unemployment rate has started
to rise - faster here than nationally.
    Just how many Haitians have arrived here remains unclear.
Estimated at as many as 20,000 in the letter Vance read to
Powell, city officials have since cut that to between 12,000 and
15,000 based on driver's license and state identification data. 
It is still a jarring increase from around 3,500 in just a few
years - too fast to be reflected yet in Census data and the
equivalent of 1.6 million or so new arrivals to New York City.
    There are growing pains - indeed outright tension - as a
result, with sometimes ugly rhetoric at city commission open
comment periods. A small group of white supremacists marched
through town during a jazz festival in mid-August.
    For many local civic and business leaders, however, the
advantages of having more people to fill jobs, start businesses,
and buy goods and services are not lost.   
    Bordered by farms in the Miami Valley and with deep roots in
farm equipment and other manufacturing, Springfield was stung
like many heartland towns by late-20th century industrial
decline.  
    A growing population "could absolutely have a long-term
benefit," Springfield mayor Rob Rue said in an interview. "But
we are in a rocky season...The most difficult thing for myself
as mayor, the five city commissioners, and the city manager is
to navigate ourselves through this."
    That includes cooling some local tempers while trying to
find funds for extra police, fire and health workers, and French
and Creole translators.
     
    'WE NEEDED A WORKFORCE'
    A Biden immigration parole program allowed about 205,000
Haitians into the country as of August. Hundreds of thousands
others are here under Temporary Protected Status granted to
those from the poor and often violence-wracked island. 
    Recent and longstanding immigrants said family and social
networks, word-of-mouth, and the quest for higher wages and
lower living costs helped draw people to Springfield.
    "My friend and I heard about Ohio and Indiana, that there
were a lot of work opportunities, and we made a plan and came,"
said Joseph, who also helps staff a local Haitian cultural
center and has resumed studies toward a social work degree at
Clark State Community College. 
Joseph, who arrived on a tourist visa, has applied for asylum
and remains here legally under TPS - a status that Trump sought
to revoke during his presidency before being blocked by the
courts. She rented a two-bedroom apartment on the open market
that she shares with a friend.
    Oreus works full time at a local manufacturer and also at
the St. Vincent De Paul Society, helping more recent arrivals
prepare immigration, benefits, and work documents.
    Why Springfield?
    "I had friends here ... My brother lived here, and I moved
here to join him," Oreus said amid the bustle of an afternoon
legal clinic for new immigrants.
     
       Springfield's housing problems predate the Haitians'
arrival. A pair of studies by the Greater Ohio Policy Center
found underinvestment and lack of code enforcement over the
years, alongside population decline, left homes vacant and in
disrepair.
    There are some signs that is reversing.
    A Ryan Homes subdivision on the outskirts of town, the first
new home construction in years, is nearly built out and largely
occupied. Another large development of higher-priced homes is
underway, and a block of city-center town homes is sold out.
    At a time when commercial real state is on shaky footing
after the pandemic, one of several vacant downtown buildings is
being converted to condominiums. And a boarded-up black
structure towering over City Hall - briefly home to a failed bid
to reincarnate the defunct E.F. Hutton investment firm brand -
has attracted investor interest with a high-tech research hub as
a possible anchor, one of several positive spillovers local
development officials say they have seen from the Intel chip
plant being built near Columbus.
    For their part, city officials, local educators and the
business community say that once the short-term disruptions are
overcome, a growing population will add to a nascent revival.
    "We needed a workforce," to fill jobs in a resurgent local
manufacturing sector and staff a growing number of warehouse and
distribution centers, said Amy Donahoe, director of workforce
development with the Greater Springfield Partnership. "They are
coming in and they are working hard and they want to make
money."   
     

    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Population of Springfield, Ohio    https://reut.rs/3Xm17Os
Benefits rolls swell in Springfield    https://reut.rs/4e4APpD
Rents take off in Springfield, Ohio    https://reut.rs/4dIWZxU
Unemployment turns higher    https://reut.rs/3Xkj9AI
Springfield, Ohio    https://reut.rs/4e3yjj5
Wage increases Springfield, Ohio    https://reut.rs/4dY1K6e
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Howard Schneider;
Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington;
Editing by Dan Burns and Suzanne Goldenbertg)
((howard.schneider@thomsonreuters.com; +1 202 789 8010;))