NAGS HEAD, N.C. — Summer is here in the Outer Banks, and so are seasonal workers who'll call the beach home for the next four months.
“My dream is to pay back my student loan. I don't really have a lot of support. It's only my mother and she's struggling a little bit, but [she] always tries to make sure that I'm good. And if I need anything, she will do anything for me," said Damonique Martin, an international student from Jamaica working at Dirty Dick's Crab House for the summer.
Martin is one of the at least hundreds of international students that will call the Outer Banks home for the summer season.
“I came here on the J-1 Work and Travel program. So you come up here and you work, and then you go back home," said Martin.
Dirty Dick’s Crab House in Nags Head has 18 of the students working at the restaurant this summer.
“I would not be able to maintain being open for lunch and dinner seven days a week if I did not have them," said Robert Barker, general manager of the restaurant.
The process of being able to bring the students here is one part of it; another is being able to house them. The students pay rent, but it’s the restaurant's responsibility to orchestrate that housing.
“The housing, it's really tricky. I have a standalone property, and then I have two kind of split properties. If you were to come here to open a restaurant, you would pretty much need to figure on buying one or two houses," said Barker.
A tricky situation that coincides with workforce housing in Dare County in general, including some of the local employees at the restaurant.
“There are people that drive 45 minutes to an hour to get into work because that's where they have to live in order to be able to afford housing," said Barker.
A situation that Barker says is, and will continue to be, a challenge in the Outer Banks.
“Everybody knows that we need housing, but every town doesn't want apartments or any kind of bulk housing going in their town," said Barker.
For international students like Martin, she’s thankful housing isn’t something she has to worry about.
“It really means a lot. It's really nice to know that we have people around us to always keep us safe," said Martin.
