"They are very disappointed. Some are crying" - Hyacinth Spence, Social Services rep.
By Nelson King
NEW YORK, (CANA) - First, it was the visa question.
Now, the recently-recruited Caribbean teachers in the New York City school system are finding suitable accommodation a problem.

Community leaders are describing as "a crisis" and "chaos" the housing situation facing the new recruits as the September 6 start of the school year approaches.

Leaders point to poor planning by the city's Board of Education in making housing preparations for the 500 Caribbean teachers who are not living with relatives or friends.

The Board has negotiated to have the teachers housed at the Pennsylvania Hotel in mid-town Manhattan and the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University. Some are also housed at the New Yorker Hotel in mid-town Manhattan.

But that provision is just for two weeks, after which, teachers must vacate the hotels or negotiate, on their own terms, with management.

That means that if they cannot immediately cough up at least $120 per night, or find affordable housing or a relative or friend to put them up, they would simply be out on the street - homeless.

The situation is even more grim, given the fact that these teachers will not be getting their first pay cheque until sometime in October.

ADJUSTMENT
No doubt, most are finding grave difficulties coming to grips with the harsh reality of a big city.

The Education Task Force of the Caribbean Research Centre (CRC) at Brooklyn's Medgar Evers College has been trying frantically to assist them.

It's not an easy undertaking, according to the Task Force's Social Services chairperson, Hyacinth Spence.

Spence, a native of Jamaica, said in an interview that, with the expiration of the two-week stay at the Board-negotiated locales, many teachers have literally been thrown out on the street.

She said that many of them are in tears, pleading with the Task Force for assistance.

"We've been inundated with pleas for help," she said. "This is mass confusion. There's a terrible breakdown somewhere because how was this supposed to be resolved, I don't know.

"If you invite so many people into the city to take up a job in September, that housing piece should be looked into with more detail."

In addition, she said, unlike teachers from the region recruited by the British system, no financial arrangement was made "to help alleviate that problem".

UNCERTAINTY OVER ASSIGNMENT
She also said that teachers are faced with uncertainty over their assignment.

She said that up to Thursday, teachers, who arrived here more than two weeks now don't know whether they will be teaching in Brooklyn or the Bronx.

This, she said, creates more difficulty since it is preferable that teachers reside closer to where they will be teaching.

For instance, commuting from Brooklyn to teach in the Bronx, could take more than 1 1/2 hours.

"They are very disappointed," Spence said. "Some are crying."

She said that the situation is so chaotic that the Education Task Force has joined forces with the Caribbean Immigrant Services (CIS) and other Caribbean community groups here to try to immediately resolve the housing situation.

"It's a very serious situation," said Irwin Claire, the Jamaican co-director of CIS, who has been on local radio here pleading with real estate agents and the Caribbean community to come to the teachers' rescue.

"It's a good programme (to recruit Caribbean teachers), but some things were just not thought through."

He charged that the community, seemingly, has been left out of the planning for the new teachers.

"The whole situation of immigration," he added, "the whole situation of visas, the whole situation of how one finds apartments, of settling in, was not carefully planned.

"What we're doing now is operating in a crisis mode, and it's quite unfortunate."

Una Clarke, the Jamaican-born City Councilwoman in Brooklyn, who spearheaded the Caribbean Teacher Initiative, and Dr. George Irish, Executive Director of CRS and head of the Education Task Force, were to meet Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy this week to discuss many of the issues facing Caribbean teachers.

But that meeting has been postponed for some time next week, Clarke said.

SITUATION OVERBLOWN
Clarke, however, said that the situation has been blown out of proportion and that the city's Housing Preservation unit is moving towards addressing the teachers' housing needs.

"I don't think that the situation is different from the nurses coming from the Caribbean to work here," she said in an interview.

"When you're on contract, you're on contract. I will not bring them here without the proper respect and dignity given to them."

Clarke also disclosed that she is collaborating with the Board of Education so that teachers can get salary advances, rather than waiting until October to receive their first pay cheque.

The Board of Education has said that between 550 and 600 teachers from the region -- primarily Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados - will begin teaching here next month.

The teachers will be paid a minimal annual salary of $31,000.