Earthquake has devastating financial impact on Haitian Americans in South Florida

By Bobeth Yates

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    MIAMI (WFOR) — Rescue and recovery efforts continue in Haiti after yet another earthquake devastated the country.

But North Miami Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime says devastation will be felt by people who are thousands of miles from the island.

“I think the 7.2 earthquake is gonna have a lot of effects on the Haitian-American living here,” said Bien-Aime.

He went on to say those effects include an unexpected financial impact for many Haitians living in South Florida.

“For the first generation of Haitian-Americans who’ve been making $2, $3 an hour working at hotels, restaurants, in the farms, those people right now, they are living on a retirement paycheck,” he said. “But they can’t make a living with that paycheck, so what they did is use their 401k, their savings, whatever they have and they built something back home.”

Bien-Aime is among the Floridians who spent thousands to build a property in his home country.

But according to Haitian officials, the 7.2 magnitude earthquake destroyed more than 7,000 homes and damaged nearly 5,000 more. And with many of those properties built by Floridians, the impacts will soon hit wallets locally.

“Over 50% of the building in Haiti, especially the countryside, have been built by the diaspora. That means people who’ve been living here,” said Bien-Aime, who went on to add most of those properties are being used by their families but eventually were meant for Haitian-Americans to retire back home.

That now means many of them will have to start over from scratch with less resources than before.

“So you can see the impact not only in Haiti, but right here in North Miami, in South Florida” said Bien-Aime.

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