Amid ongoing gang violence in Haiti's capital, Port au Prince, more than 1,500 people have died so far just this year. The United Nations' World Food Programme warns that 1.4 million Haitians are at risk of famine.
"It's a dire situation," Marie St. Fleur said on Boston Public Radio Friday.
It’s led to a growing number of Haitians leaving the country to come to the United States, and many are coming to the Boston area. Massachusetts is home to 80,000 Haitians, making it the third-largest Haitian population in the United States.
But even with thousands of new arrivals, Marline Amedee, president and co-founder of the Brockton-based Haitian Community Partners Foundation, said the influx to the United States isn't proportionate due to a lack of transportation out of the country.
"There's no airplane, no way for people to move — that's why you don't see the migrant flux coming more and more," Amedee said on Boston Public Radio. "Haitian people need your help."
St. Fleur is looking for the federal government to do more: first, by restricting the flow of guns.
"Nobody manufactures guns in the inner city in the United States, nor in Haiti. Those guns have been flowing back and forth," St. Fleur said. "We can control customs. We can control the airways."
She added that states need more resources to respond to the growing number of people coming from Haiti.
"We have to have the resources to support them because they're impacting our states. Our neighborhoods, our schools, our public health systems, and so we need the resources to do that," she said.
And, in Haiti, she wants Haitians to have a say in what the American government's response looks like, pointing to the history of U.S. intervention in Haiti. She emphasized that she doesn't speak for those still in Haiti, and that their voices should be listened to.
"They're telling you they don't want the kinds of interventions of the past. They're telling you that they want a voice at the table," St. Fleur said. "So if you're going to send a military force in, we want to be in at the table."
She's is also forwarding that work through her organization, the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network, which is comprised of a number of Haitian current and former elected U.S. officials. St. Fleur herself, a former Massachusetts state representative, was the first Haitian American elected to state office anywhere in the United States.
For people in Massachusetts to make their own impact, Amedee hopes they start by reaching out to local nonprofits like hers, asking people like retirees to volunteer teaching English as a second language.
"Choose an organization that you want to support," she said. "Not only that we're helping people in Haiti, but we're helping the new migrants that's come here, as well — as a small organization that does not have the resources."
St. Fleur pointed to three major areas she sees where help is desperately needed: housing, jobs, and school-based supports for children.
"Half of the population that are in shelters across Massachusetts right now are migrant families. We have a real issue. And problem is, we have a shortage of housing," she said. "If you have a home [then] you can help."
Both organizations will be hosting events on April 27. Members of the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network are coming to Boston to sit down and talk through strategies. In Brockton, the Haitian Community Partners Foundation will be hosting its Annual Gala Dinner.
