MONTPELIER — Holding a baby who reached for the microphone in front of her, Yari Barabata said she had stayed quiet for too long about her struggles to find safe housing, and she had finally decided to speak up.
An immigrant without a Social Security number, Barabata said she stayed in housing that she described as unsafe, where she experienced alleged emotional and verbal abuse, because she was afraid that if she left she and her new baby would be homeless.
“It’s not easy to speak in front of you today,” she said in Spanish to a group of supporters and journalists at a press conference Friday at the Vermont Statehouse. “There have been moments that, because of fear of losing the roof over my head, I made the decision to stay silent. But not anymore.” Her comments were translated to English by Will Lambek of the nonprofit advocacy group Migrant Justice.
Now, Barabata — along with a coalition of advocates from Migrant Justice, the Vermont Human Rights Commission, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, the Community Asylum Seekers Project and others — is calling on Vermont lawmakers to add immigration status to the list of protected classes under the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act.
Rep. Leonora Dodge, D-Essex Town, who also spoke on Friday, plans to sponsor a bill that would add those new protections to state law. The measure is a long way from becoming law: It’s currently being drafted and hasn’t yet been introduced, she told VTDigger on Friday.
The proposal would require landlords to accept alternatives to Social Security numbers on housing applications — such as an individual tax identification number — that still allows landlords to check applicants’ credit.
It’s modeled on legislation that became law in several other states, including California, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington, Dodge said.
Several speakers on Friday said that, without a Social Security number, their applications for housing have been consistently rejected.
“Everywhere we looked our application was denied because, at every turn, we would be asked for a Social Security number, and that was the determining factor in not renting us an apartment,” Barabata said.
The problem has worsened in recent years as Vermont’s housing crisis has grown and as immigrants who don’t have legal authorization to live in the U.S. have increasingly sought work outside of dairy farms, where housing is often provided.
“Not being able to rent your own place brings many problems because it limits you to look for work from employers who provide housing to their workers, and that can result in more discrimination in that housing and many problems,” said Jose Ignacia De La Cruz, another speaker.
Many, ironically, have found work in construction — building homes to alleviate Vermont’s housing crisis.
That’s the case for De La Cruz, who said his family left a dairy farm after being there for five years to work for a construction company. He and his family had to live with a friend for a year because no one would accept his housing application without a Social Security number, he said.
But the homeowner was remodeling, so he and his family had to move with their baby.
“We ended up finding another informal living arrangement in the attic of another friend’s apartment, but because the attic wasn’t wired, we didn’t have electricity with our 1-year-old child,” he said, his comments translated through Lambek.
It was summer, and their baby cried in the heat, De La Cruz said. They didn’t have a fan, so instead they fanned him with a piece of cardboard and worried about potential health impacts from the child overheating.
“It’s my dream, one day, that the houses that we are building are open for our own community to live in, as well,” De La Cruz said.
Finally, both De La Cruz and Barabata found housing. His family found a home when a friend who had a Social Security number vouched for them, and hers found a landlord who accepted them even though they lack Social Security numbers.
“This was the only option that we had found,” Barabata said. “And perhaps the terms of the rent weren’t the most favorable. The price was a little bit high, but we had to accept it so that we could move to a place where we could raise our child.”
Amanda Garces, director of policy for the Vermont Human Rights Commission, said the same immigrants who fill “vital gaps” in workplaces across the state, including bakeries, farms, housecleaning, restaurants and construction, “face significant challenges.”
“Their barriers are often steepened by discrimination based not only on immigration status, but also on perception of immigration status,” Garces said.
The legislation would ensure that “no one is denied housing because of their actual or perceived citizenship or immigration status,” she said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Citing discrimination, Vermont immigrants push for fair housing legislation.