Meet Your Neighbors

New arrivals to Little Haiti work hard to save enough money to buy a house somewhere else, usually to the north, places like Miami Shores, El Portal, North Miami, and North Miami Beach. Even if a Haitian couple has to work two minimum-wage jobs apiece and enlist the help of siblings and cousins, and in spite of political and social-services systems stacked against them, they'll manage to scrape together a down payment on an American dream. But those who succeed the fastest are most often the ones with advantages such as an education, legal residency or citizenship, and family members able to lend support.

Haitians trying to establish themselves in the U.S. confront obstacles most other immigrant groups will never know, such as deliberately anti-Haitian immigration policies, social and educational services catering to Spanish-speakers and ignoring Kreyol-speakers, the ever-present subtleties of racism, and thousands of low-level jobs off-limits to Haitians because they've always been filled by Spanish-speaking immigrants. Naomi's U.S. citizenship has been no protection from or mitigation of the base poverty in which she lives.

She is hoping she'll get a call tomorrow morning from the home health-care agency she signed up with, telling her to report to work (usually to a private home) as a homemaker. Even one day a week of work now sounds good to her, even at no more than eight dollars an hour. "I never have a long job," she complains. "Sometimes I find work for three days a week. Last year I worked seven days a week -- but only for three months." If her 1986 Chevrolet station wagon isn't running, which it often isn't, she has to walk three blocks to the bus stop, wait under wilting sun or rain, and if her destination allows, hop on a jitney. Sometimes she has to take the bus and transfer, a round trip costing three dollars and taking up three hours in travel time.

This is no way to cover her $550 monthly rent, not to mention the phone and electricity bills. Naomi says she has been rejected for welfare or Medicaid benefits; she doesn't understand why. Antoine, who is studying to be an auto mechanic at the Miami Skill Center, has not been able to find a job. He is covered by Medicaid, though only until he turns 21 next year. Luckily for Naomi, so far anyway, God has granted her good health.

But she works hard at survival. To round up enough food for her and Antoine, Naomi must become a modern-day version of the hunter-gatherer. She finds free lunches, yet she pays in time, effort, and pride. Naomi has collected food donations at churches all over the county. She'll usually get nonperishable staples such as rice, oil, flour -- mainly canned foods. "A friend will call you and say, 'Can you go with me to this place to get food?'" she explains. "Sometimes people who have the same problem as me will call and invite me to go one day with them. The problem is if you go one time to a certain church you cannot go another time, per year. And they give the good things to the people in the church, not to the people on the outside."

Still she's not about to complain. She is vague about the apparently meager help she gets from her own congregation, a Church of God whose Haitian members are far from rich. Naomi was receiving food stamps this past March and April, then the stamps stopped. She doesn't know the reason, but she has another appointment scheduled for this month at the food-stamp office on NW 79th Street. "I have an interview," she clarifies. "They ask you a lot of questions, until you want to forget about food stamps."

Food vouchers, issued by the federal government and distributed through the United Way to community and charitable groups, are easier in some ways -- no third degree or endless paperwork -- but she never knows which agency is actually going to have any on hand when she needs them. Last week, after a volunteer at Sant La, a community-assistance center in Little Haiti, verified by phone that a Northwest Miami-Dade agency did have vouchers, Naomi rode out by bus only to be told the vouchers had been used up. Finally another office gave her $30 worth of food vouchers, good at Winn-Dixie. "The only problem with vouchers," Naomi says, "is they're just good at Publix or Winn-Dixie. For $60 at Publix you might come home with two bags. You can get more at a smaller market. So if you have food stamps you use them there." Just the other day, after perusing the various ad supplements stuffed in her mailbox, she drove up to North Miami and paid two dollars at President Market for a ten-pound bag of chicken legs and thighs.