EASTHAM — The 22 seasonal workers who spent the summer employed at the Four Points Sheraton in Eastham as part of the J-1 visa program have now returned home. It’s not clear whether they will return next year, considering the housing they were provided by their employer.

Without the thousands of students who come to Cape Cod under the J-1 program, most local businesses would be hard-pressed to meet the demands of the peak tourist season, according to Paul Niedzwiecki, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, who called the J-1 program “the underpinning” of the region’s seasonal economy.

About 5,000 J-1 workers came to Cape Cod in 2018. Although the pandemic knocked the number back for a few years, this summer, Niedzwiecki said, the J-1 population rebounded to almost 4,000.

The program is also meant to be a cultural exchange, part of a program Congress created more than 60 years ago “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries,” according to the nonprofit American Immigration Council.

The Sheraton’s 22 J-1 students cleaned rooms, did laundry, and performed other tasks at the hotel. They were housed in just two rooms at the Ocean Park Inn, next door to the Sheraton, according to student workers staying at the property who, except for one, would not give their names.

One of the rooms had seven sets of bunk beds for the 14 young men. The other room had four sets of bunk beds for the eight young women workers. Each room had only one bathroom.

Complain at Your Own Risk

Securing a job on Cape Cod isn’t nearly as challenging as finding a place to live, however, and housing must be in place before the student workers arrive in the U.S. Many rely on their employers to make arrangements for them. But workers here on temporary visas aren’t likely to complain because they fear losing both their jobs and their housing. “They are afraid because they think they’re going to be sent back home,” Niedzwiecki said.

For Jignesh Patel of Weston, housing employees would not seem to be a challenge. Patel is listed as the sole manager and agent of the limited liability company Eastham MA Hotels that owns both the Four Points Sheraton, which has 107 rooms, and the Ocean Park Inn, with 28 rooms.

Patel is president of a Newton-based development and hotel management company called JNR Hotels. Dan Connell, JNR’s regional director of operations, manages the Four Points Sheraton in Eastham, and he has been the point person local officials communicate with regarding workers’ living arrangements, according to Eastham Building Commissioner Justin Post.

Although there were postings by local people on the Eastham community Facebook page regarding inadequate living arrangements they said they’d heard about from the workers, no one apparently notified local officials. A complaint must be filed to trigger an inspection, according to the town health dept.

The Independent made several unsuccessful attempts to speak with the Sheraton’s J-1 employees to confirm what was posted online. In mid-September, a young man answered the door to his room at the Ocean Park Inn but declined to answer questions. After that, no one else answered the door.

On Sept. 16, Hasan Safaraliyev, one of the Sheraton’s J-1s, spoke briefly with a reporter as he walked back to the room following a shift at the hotel. Most of the students staying in the room at Ocean Park Inn had already gone home, he said, and he was set to return to Azerbaijan after his final day of work on Sept. 20.

Safaraliyev offered a reporter a brief glimpse inside the one-room unit. It was dark at the time because some of the workers were sleeping, but several bunks could be seen lining the room’s walls. Safaraliyev said he didn’t mind the arrangement.

“It was interesting,” he said, adding that there were usually only eight staying in the room at any given time. “I worked two jobs, so I just slept here.”

That same day, this reporter lodged the only complaint the health dept. received about the students’ quarters at Ocean Park with Hillary Greenberg-Lemos, Eastham’s director of health and environment, and also informed Building Commissioner Post of the situation.

Post and Health Inspector Susan Barker then made two attempts to look inside the two rooms on Sept. 17, according to Barker. No one responded to their knocks, however, and the curtains to the rooms were shut, blocking their view of the interior.

Inspections in April

In her report, Barker wrote that she would discuss “property occupation” with the Sheraton’s management before the 2025 season. Post said he had not been to the property since the annual preseason inspection done at all the hotels. The complaint filed by this newspaper “was the first I heard of the situation,” he said.

Patel did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but Connell sent a statement by email: “Ocean Park Inn offers a variety of rooms with double, triple, quadruple occupancy as well as larger apartment style rooms. We comply with all local, state and federal health codes and guidelines.”

The Chatham Bars Inn leased blocks of rooms for its workers at both Seashore Park Inn in Orleans, according to that hotel’s bankruptcy filing, and at Ocean Park Inn in Eastham, according to the Eastham health agent’s report.

Chatham Bars ran hourly shuttles to pick up the employees for work and return them home when their shifts ended, according to a J-1 worker who would give only his first name, Filip. He said he worked for Chatham Bars and lived at Ocean Park Inn this summer.

But while the Sheraton’s workers were packed into two rooms, the Chatham Bars employees lived two to a room at both motels. Crowding was not the problem, said Filip, although the condition of the room was not good.

Filip knew things could be worse. He said his fellow workers who stayed at Seashore Park Inn in Orleans told him that they were without power for two days during the summer because the motel owner had failed to pay his electric bill.

The Chatham Bars workers each were charged $150 to $175 weekly at both motels for their accommodations, Filip said. He doesn’t plan to return. “It’s too expensive,” he said.

It is unclear whether the Sheraton’s own J-1 employees paid weekly rent. Safaraliyev said he paid $100 his first week but made no payments after that. Connell did not respond to an email request for the information.

Niedzwiecki said the creation of a tourism district could open the way to new approaches to workforce housing. Creating large blocks of seasonal workforce housing with professional management to oversee it would relieve some of the pressure, he said, and might ensure better conditions.

“Employers don’t want to be landlords,” Niedzwiecki said. “If we can relieve them of the management of it, it might be better for everybody.”