Workers walk from Mary Esther to jobs here

Lodging is so hard to find in Destin that some summer workers with jobs there are willing to room in Mary Esther and walk to work, Destin librarian Cindy Oberlin says.

"About five or six came in Thursday or Friday to register and get their library cards," Oberlin said. "They'd walked here from Mary Esther in the heat. We gave them bus schedules."

As the summer tourist season has grown over the years, and more and more businesses have opened in Destin, the summer labor market has become excruciatingly tight. A growing number of businesses rely on Eastern Europe as a source of teen and twentysomething summer workers.

One company, Eurohouse Holding Corp., started feeding that market in 2002 by bringing more than 20 workers to Destin in 2002, and the number rose to more than 300 two years later.

Destin Library's Internet computers have become the connection between visiting workers and their families and friends back home. Oberlin said the walkers from Mary Esther, which is about 10 miles west of Destin, told her they wanted to use the library in Destin, rather than in Mary Esther, because it's closer to their job.

Oberlin said the students usually start showing up at the beginning of May, but this year, they didn't arrive until June. A more worrisome change from past years, she said, is that many of them apparently have nowhere to live and sometimes not even a firm job.

"A lot of them are showing up that don't have a place to stay, and they're asking us for information," Oberlin said. "It's very disturbing they don't have any knowledge of any place to stay. I don't know that they're coming with definite places to work."

It's not the first time foreign students have run into problems. In 2004, 11 Polish and Ukrainian summer workers wound up with nowhere to live until landowner Tom Curry gave them permission to pitch tents in the back yard of a home he owned on the Destin's west side. The city decided that didn't meet city codes, but City Manager Greg Kisela found them rent-free housing at Jay Villa Cottages in the harbor area.