where we work.

living conditions

• The State Sugar Council (CEA) provides 37.9% of housing



• Only 4.9% of batey residents own housing



• Average household size: 5.3 persons



• 30.7% houses are without electricity

"Housing conditions in the ten bateyes (...) visited vary from uncomfortable to horrible. Dominican sugar mill workers (who drive trucks, weigh cane, run the mill equipment, serve as guards or run the bodegas in the batey) live in small concrete houses close to the mill; Haitian and Dominican-Haitian viejos generally live in the long, rectangular concrete or wooden barracks known as barracones, many of which date from the Trujillo era. Families share a tiny, two-room windowless space in these structures. Makeshift beds, clothing and cooking utensils are often stored on the floor together. Walls have not been cleaned or painted in ages and are filthy. Cooking is done on a collective fire outside the barracón. A third housing area features the newest (or oldest) Haitian residents who cannot lay claim to CEA housing. They build their own houses of carton, sheet metal or mud with palm fronds or thatch for roofs and earth for a floor."

-National Coalition for Haitian Rights report, "Beyond the Bateyes"