Outer Banks international student workers share concerns about housing, transportation

A steady stream of international university students arrived and stationed their bicycles outside Family Recreation Park in Kill Devil Hills in July.

On Tuesdays from June 11 until Aug. 20, the nonprofit Outreach Ministries OBX serves 75 to 90 students a free weekly dinner, donated by a local restaurant or church, in space provided by Dare County. The ministry organizes a group game and has a volunteer share their testimony.

David Daniels and wife Kay have led the ministry at various locations across the Outer Banks for about 20 years.

The students arriving represent a fraction of the likely over 1,000 participating in the U.S. Department of State’s “Summer Work Travel” on the Outer Banks .

In 2023, 1,152 students lived and worked on the Outer Banks with the temporary, nonimmigrant J-1 visas — nearly half the 2,381 student participants in North Carolina, according to the State Department’s J-1 visa website. Official numbers are not finalized until the following year, so it is unclear how many students are on the Outer Banks this summer.

The Virginian-Pilot conducted 23 interviews in June and July of students, employers and volunteers who work with the students, and found concerns surrounding transportation and housing.

On July 9, David Daniels used a van to transport some students to the dinner who live too far to bike, Kay said.

Bicycles are often the only transportation for local J-1 students, she said.

“It’s so unsafe, it scares me,” she said.

Hanson Lai, a student from Taiwan, said this is his second summer on the Outer Banks. Last year, he worked as a housekeeper for the Hilton Garden Inn Outer Banks/Kitty Hawk, and this summer he is a restaurant attendant at the Ramada Inn in Kill Devil Hills.

He wanted a more interactive job to practice his English, and his bike ride to work was also a factor. Last year’s ride took him 30 minutes; this year he has a 2-minute ride.

Jenny Fan, a Taiwanese student working at the Hilton this year, said her bike ride to work is 20-30 minutes; “it’s a little far.”

According to local J-1 students, employers and volunteers, students typically pay $100 to $150 a week — generally the higher end — for a single bed in a room shared by up to five students.

Up to 16 unrelated university students sometimes live in four-bedroom houses, according to several of them.

Hugo Mendoza, 27, of Peru, is studying at the College of the Albemarle on an F-1 visa. Last year, he came to the Outer Banks as a J-1 student and lived in housing secured by then-employer Captain George’s Seafood Restaurant.

“I used to live with three Dominican guys, one guy from Costa Rica,” he said of last summer’s room of five students.

While they were “so friendly, really good environment, the problem was we have different schedules, so that one work at 5 a.m.; another arrive at 2 a.m.”

The mix of cultures among the young adults can in some cases be challenging, according to some students.

“I like the host mom, but I think it’s too crowded,” Taiwanese student Pinky Li said of her living arrangements. Five students from three countries — Taiwan, Jamaica and Macedonia — share one room this summer, and “we only have one bathroom,” she said.

Li and Fan, both 19 and housekeepers at the Hilton this year, said they were surprised to learn they’d be in a room with a total of five students and described their living situations as “kind of hard” and “a little bit hard,” respectively.

This housing arrangement has apparently been a longstanding one, according to Jodie O’Sullivan, the Hilton’s human resources manager.

“We have one host family that, she will take five females every summer,” O’Sullivan said.

The Hilton has participated in the J-1 program since 2008 and owns a three-level, four-bedroom house a few hundred yards away specifically for employee housing, with typically two to four people sharing each bedroom.

“It’s got a pool; it’s a really, really nice spot for $150 a week,” O’Sullivan said. “Then we have established host parents within the community that have hosted J-1s over the course of the years.”

Meanwhile, two students working at Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café as prep cooks said they live in Manteo within walking distance to downtown. However, the imposing Washington Baum Bridge separates them from most other area J-1 students.

Computer science majors Emin Yusuf Ciceldemir of Turkey and Javon Laing of Jamaica didn’t know each other before they became roommates.

They said their housing has two rooms, with four single beds in each. They depend on a co-worker giving them a ride to work, and they lamented the lack of other students in their early 20s in Manteo.

“Manteo is small and boring for the students,” Ciceldemir said. The Tuesday dinner is “a very nice opportunity for us.”

Three students from different countries employed by Food Lion — which has multiple locations across the Outer Banks — spoke to The Pilot on the condition of anonymity.

They said their housing is adequate, but it’s too far from the store to bike. They must depend on a shuttle that Food Lion operates.

They described the shuttle as unreliable, which affects their paychecks, they said. For a shift starting on the hour, the shuttle will regularly drop them off 20 to 50 minutes late, and the company doesn’t let them make up missed hours.

“I am not going to make what I expected to make,” one student said disappointedly.

Though one student said they could earn the same money in their home country when company-limited work hours and local food and housing costs are factored in, “I don’t regret it.”

Roommates have become “new friends. I love them.”

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About an hour north of Family Recreation Park, Pastor Jim Southern of Corolla Chapel leads a J-1 outreach program that he said is like Daniels’, providing a weekly meal and a place for 40 to 60 international students in Corolla to decompress and socialize.

Southern said Harris Teeter and Food Lion — the biggest Corolla employers of J-1 students — often put four students per room in houses, so there will be 16 students in a four-bedroom and 20 in a five-bedroom.

“I have been in some that are in real disrepair,” Southern said of the houses. “Most of them are, you know, adequate and safe, but they’re the older houses that are at the end of their rental life up here.”

In the past eight or nine years of his outreach, Southern has gone before the district attorney on behalf of three students after they’d lost jobs — and, therefore, their housing — in hopes their cases could be resolved through community service before their time in the country ended.

In all three cases, the students had been in the U.S. about a week and lost their grocery store jobs after accidentally selling alcohol to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration undercover agents.

“So these students you know, it’s a second language, it’s the pressure of the line that’s behind them, it’s a number of things; and sometimes they just make mistakes,” Southern said.

The employer must follow protocol and dismiss them, but the students must find other jobs and housing, he said.

Neither Food Lion nor Harris Teeter spokespersons answered The Pilot’s questions about the living arrangements or shuttles for their J-1 students on the Outer Banks.

“Out of respect for privacy considerations and to protect proprietary information, we do not disclose specific details about their housing arrangements,” Harris Teeter Corporate Affairs Manager Paige Hamer said in an email. “Ensuring a comfortable and safe environment for all our associates remains our top priority.”

“Our associates are our number one priority, and we are connecting with them directly to learn more about these concerns and address their feedback,” Food Lion Communications Manager Leslie Rasimas said via email.

Food Lion has participated in the J-1 program for 17 years and employs 370 students in Currituck and Dare counties this summer.

Harris Teeter began participating in the J-1 program in 2006 and has 96 students at its Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Corolla stores this year, from countries including the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Kosovo, Romania and Taiwan, according to Hamer.

“By participating in this program, we not only meet our staffing needs during our busiest season but also foster a diverse and inclusive environment that reflects the global community we serve,” Hamer said.

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Housing crunch

Local J-1 numbers have not fully recovered from before the pandemic, and housing is a major factor, according to Jamie Banjak of the all-volunteer Outer Banks International Student Outreach Program.

“Pretty much the only people that are able to take part in the program are people that are able to offer housing to their participants,” Banjak said. “I don’t know that we’re ever going to be able to do that (get back to pre-pandemic numbers) with what’s happened to our housing market.”

Seasonal communities in other states have created dormitory-style workforce housing, but such proposed projects here have not been successful, she said.

“We have high-density vacation housing; we do not have high-density workforce housing,” Banjak said.

Patricia Pledger, who retired in 2019 from operating Pledger Palace Child Development Center in Southern Shores, said several corporate businesses approached her, seeking to use her building “illegally” for J-1 housing.

“I have always done things professionally, and I will continue to do things professionally,” Pledger said. She was willing to go through the proper channels to convert the use of her building to try to help solve a piece of the area’s workforce housing crisis — but was denied at every turn.

The Southern Shores Planning Board in a 4-1 vote and the Southern Shores Town Council in a 5-0 vote each denied her zoning text amendment application to allow “shared space-occupancy dwelling” in the Martin’s Point commercial district in May and June 2023, respectively, according to meeting minutes.

Dare County formally absorbed jurisdiction of the Martin’s Point commercial district, and then Pledger applied there.

The county planning board denied her text amendment submittals in March and May, Dare County Planning Director Noah Gillam told the Dare County Board of Commissioners at its June 3 meeting. The commissioners in a unanimous 7-0 vote denied her submittal that day.

Commissioner Danny Couch said the area was “not a suitable location” for such a project. “I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think Martin’s Point is.”

Commissioners Ervin Bateman and Rob Ross voiced concerns with eight students sharing a room.

“I’m trying to envision 56 unrelated, unknown folks to each other in seven rooms with eight people in each and on a piece of property about 3/4 of an acre … I have a great deal of discomfort with that,” Ross said.

Pledger later in June said the students would have access to a commercial kitchen and to several common areas within the building. Her plans included having an on-site residential supervisor. She noted that everything students would need is in a 5-mile radius, and multi-use paths make the area safe to access via bicycle.

“It is very important to me to set a standard,” Pledger said. “If I wouldn’t put my child in it, I wouldn’t put someone else’s child in (the proposed housing).”