Displaced Puerto Ricans hope to leave U.S. hotels

Leslie Rivera (right) sits with her children earlier this month in their hotel room in Tampa, Fla., where they’ve been living since Hurricane Maria destroyed their home in Puerto Rico in September.
Leslie Rivera (right) sits with her children earlier this month in their hotel room in Tampa, Fla., where they’ve been living since Hurricane Maria destroyed their home in Puerto Rico in September.

NEW YORK -- Around the U.S., many Puerto Ricans are adrift in hotels because of Hurricane Maria. The move north spared them from the misery of the storm's aftermath on the island. But the transition has often proved to be difficult, disruptive and expensive as people try to find housing, jobs, schools and even furniture and clothes to start fresh on the mainland.

After losing their home to flooding from the Sept. 20 hurricane, Enghie Melendez and her family fled to the U.S. mainland, where they shuffled between staying with relatives to a homeless shelter to a small hotel in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

While her husband looks for work, they are stuck in limbo, eating off paper plates and stepping over clothes in cramped quarters as they try to get settled in an unfamiliar city. Melendez was forced to change schools for her three daughters in the middle of the semester.

"The instability is terrible," she said as her husband, who worked as a cook at an Army base near San Juan, used a glass bottle to mash plantains to make a traditional Puerto Rican dish.

The situation isn't rare. In Galveston County, Texas, federal officials say nearly 800 families remain in hotels five months after Hurricane Harvey destroyed or damaged their homes.

Adding to the worries for large numbers of Puerto Ricans, however, is that hotel reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have started to run out, and many say they can't afford temporary housing without assistance.

"It's stressful," said Yalitza Rodriguez, a 35-year-old from the southern Puerto Rico town of Yauco who has been staying at a hotel in Queens with her elderly mother and husband while he looks for work. "If we don't get an extension we will have nowhere to live."

Maria destroyed between 70,000 and 75,000 homes and damaged an additional 300,000, said Leticia Jover, a spokesman for Puerto Rico's Housing Department. The effects of the storm included the widespread loss of power, which is still not restored in some places. Many businesses closed. The result has been an exodus to the mainland.

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College estimated in an October study that between 114,000 and 213,000 Puerto Ricans would move to the U.S. mainland over the next 12 months. Most were expected to settle in Florida, followed by Pennsylvania, Texas and New York.

FEMA says there are nearly 4,000 families, more than 10,000 people, receiving hotel assistance from the agency in 42 states because their homes in Puerto Rico are too damaged to occupy. The agency extended the expiration for the program from Jan. 13 to March 20 at the request of the island's governor, but all cases are reviewed for eligibility every 30 days and the payments could end for some people sooner. It's impossible to know how many are in temporary housing without any aid or are staying with families.

Leslie Rivera, from the central town of Caguas, has been shuffling among hotels in Tampa, Fla., since December with her three kids, ages 13, 10 and 2. She was approved for subsidized housing and expects to be settled soon but it has been difficult.

"I feel like I am on the streets because I have no clothes. I have nothing for my kids," the 35-year-old said with tears in her eyes.

Marytza Sanz, president of Latino Leadership Orlando, which has been helping displaced families, said many don't know where they will go after FEMA stops paying for their rooms.

"There are people with five dollars in their pockets," she said. "They can't buy detergent, deodorant, medicine."

After the hurricane, Melendez and her family were forced to sleep for more than three weeks in their garage because of flooding and sewage that entered the home. They left their four dogs with a friend and managed to get on a humanitarian flight. They spent 10 days at Melendez's father-in-law's Manhattan apartment and a month and a half in a Brooklyn shelter. A Puerto Rican activist helped them enter the hotel.

"My kids were in a Manhattan school. We would wake up before 5 a.m. at the shelter to take them there. Now they are in a Brooklyn school," she said. "Where will they be tomorrow?"

For now, they survive on a $1,700 monthly disability payment that Melendez receives along with about $300 a month in food stamps.

Her 16-year-old daughter, Enghiemar, does her homework on the floor of the hotel room and tries to keep in touch with friends back home by text.

"I always wanted to come and live here," she said. "But not like this."

Information for this article was contributed by Gisela Salomon, Tamara Lush and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/30/2018

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