Southwest Florida Housing Market Shifts Leave Latino Community in Flux

With a huge drop-off in the state’s formerly hot Southwest Florida housing market, Latinos are leaving the region for areas of the U.S. offering more work or taking jobs that pay less.

Construction building permits across the region were down as much as 66 percent in recent months, and with 50 percent of Southwest Florida’s construction industry staffed by Latinos, the shift is likely to have a big impact on that industry - and perhaps the region’s economy as a whole.

The impact of the housing decline goes beyond home builders, construction companies to rental managers and shops catering to Latinos.

“The majority of us here are illegal,” said Benjamin Ramirez, a 34-year-old framing subcontractor from Bradenton, who has worked in the United States illegally for about eight years. “For us, when the work is gone, it’s just no more.”

A large part of the Latino population is moving to other areas, such as Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states where residential construction is still strong. At the same time, lower-paying jobs in agriculture, food service and retail are reclaiming workers as they wait out the construction downturn.

Six weeks ago, Ramirez was called to a meeting with Lennar Homes, the big Miami-based developer and the biggest home builder in the region. Ramirez, who had subcontracted for Lennar for three years, was told there would be no more work.

Though the overall unemployment level has remained relatively unchanged in the Sunshine State, and the Southwest Florida economy appears to be going strong, unemployment claims have risen, in construction, to a new high of 63.37 percent since June.

Moreover, the rise in Florida mortgage costs and the subsequent housing market slowdown is not the only thing prompting Latino workers to leave.

Employers and workers saw unprecedented enforcement of immigration laws in 2006, with more arrests for immigration violations at job sites nationally than any other period in recent memory. Add to that new rules from Homeland Security designed to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers.

Employers are now becoming leery.

While the construction industry sheds workers, other sectors are starting to reap the benefits from the housing market shift. State and national figures show that the drops in construction and manufacturing industries are being counterbalanced by a big run-up in food service and retail jobs. Florida’s vital agriculture sector has also benefited.

“Having lost a lot of labor to construction, we are finally getting that back,” said Mike Sparks, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual.