SOUTHAMPTON is home to some of the poshest residential enclaves on Long Island.
But behind the million-dollar houses, haute-couture boutiques and fur-draped women is a growing homeless population living in transience in local motels.
Most aren’t Hamptons natives; instead, they’re being bused in by the dozens from such decaying Suffolk County villages as Amityville, Brentwood and Wyandanch, where there’s simply no room for them in shelters.
And their relocation is rattling many among the Hamptons’ upper crust, who envision an apocalyptic scene of homeless people roaming and panhandling along Main Street’s pristine sidewalks.
“This isn’t New York City,” storms one Southampton resident, wearing a mink coat and carrying a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag. “I came here to escape urban problems, and I don’t think these homeless people should be here.
“When you house these people in these motels, you’re creating ghettos of poverty. All it spells is lowered real-estate prices and higher crime rates.”
“I’d be more sympathetic if these people were native to the Hamptons,” her male companion chimes in. “But it galls me that these people are being bused in. Why is our town forced to deal with them when it’s not Southampton’s problem?”
Almost 100 families a night are staying in seven motels in Suffolk County, several of which are in the most exclusive part of Long Island’s real-estate market: Hampton Bays, Quogue and Southampton.
The number has doubled since last year, a fact county officials attribute to the lack of affordable housing.
“There’s just a severe shortage on Long Island right now, and all the shelters are filled to capacity,” explains Dennis Nowak, spokesman for the Suffolk Department of Social Services. “There’s nowhere else to put these people. There’s no doubt we want to be out of motels entirely.”
The county approached the motel owners and asked if they would be willing to temporarily house the homeless from surrounding communities. They agreed.
The locals are complaining that it’s not even cost-effective. For a family of four, the Best Eastern Motel costs the county about $150 a night – a whopping $4,500 a month.
The Southampton Town Board, citing zoning laws, is now trying to stop the county from using its motels as emergency housing facilities.
Carolyn Zank, a member of the board, says residents have legitimate concerns.
“I think taxpayers are outraged at the notion that the county is paying motels $4,500 a month to house the homeless, when even in Hampton Bays, people are able to rent homes for $1,000 a month,” she says. “There must be another, cheaper option.”
Meanwhile, a similar controversy is brewing in East Hampton, where residents are fuming over the town’s decision to build 59 middle-income houses on 32 acres of land.
The houses, which will cost about $140,000 apiece, will each sit on a quarter-acre of land, in stark contrast to the colossal mansions surrounding them.
“We are suddenly hit with a plan that threatens to create a ghetto-like area smack in the middle of our town,” chides Hamptonite Sue Avedon in a letter to a local newspaper.
Avedon told The Post she’s all for low-income housing – but not concentrated in one area.
“There’s a stigma attached to an identified low-cost housing area and, as a result, real-estate prices around there plummet,” she says flatly. “There are many lots scattered throughout the town which are perfect candidates.”
She says her concern is that the proposed units are in a designated groundwater-protection area. But Nina Stewart, director of housing and community development for East Hampton, says that the town spent five months studying the environmental impact before moving to purchase the land.
ADVOCATES for the homeless say the furor is nothing more than the wealthy rallying against the poor.
Many of those in need are South American and Mexican immigrants. The Hispanic population in the county has increased 35 percent in the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“There’s a lot of bigotry and hostility out here that’s swelled as the Hispanic population has increased,” says Katherine Hartnett, a Southampton social worker for the Apostolado Hispano.
“They’d prefer these communities to remain ghettoized in undesirable parts of town or to disappear entirely. That’s why there’s such resistance to offering affordable housing. It’s unfortunate, because the conditions are so appalling, with four or five families squeezing together into tiny houses.”
But some Hamptons residents says such characterizations are unfounded.
“I think most people out here are very sympathetic to the poor and homeless,” says Steve Haweeli, an East Hampton publicist.
“Longtime residents wouldn’t turn their noses up at helping someone, especially since many of the poor families around here have lived in the Hamptons for years. The real resistance comes from people who only come out here to stay during the summer. They don’t have as strong a sense of community, and thus don’t feel the need to help anyone.”
Indeed, longtime Hamptonites agree that poverty in one of the country’s toniest areas is nothing new.
“There have been homeless people in the Hamptons for the past seven years, but right now, there are even more of them because the rental market has dried up so dramatically,” says Mary Ann Tupper, director of human resources at the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Church in Southampton.
“There are homeless men who have laborer jobs around the Hamptons who actually camp out in the woods year-round. Every Christmas, they ask me for new sleeping bags and tarps to weather Long Island’s bitter-cold winters.
“These are men whose families have lived in the Hamptons for years,” Tupper says. “Many of them have contributed enormously to the community. And now they’re relegated to sleeping in the woods? It’s an outrage.”
MANY of the homeless are as unhappy to be in the Hamptons as the locals are to have them there.
“I feel like I stick out here like a sore thumb,” says Cathy White, a 39-year-old mother of five who’s been living at the Southampton Bays Inn for two months.
As in the cases of many poor residents of the other motels, families of five and six are crammed into one room at the Southampton Bays. The nearest supermarket is three miles away, a 45-minute walk.
Rooms have no stove, but do have a microwave, and families must wash their clothes in the bathroom sink.
“Social services originally told me I’d only be here two days,” White says. “It’s been hard on my family. My children have to get up at 5 every morning for a two-hour bus ride back to school in Bellport. Trust me. I desperately want to get out of here.”
While the better-heeled Southamptonites dine at upscale eateries, like Savanna’s, or shop for furs at the local Saks, White spends much of her day on a pay phone across the street from the motel, making calls to employment agencies, social-service providers and real-estate companies.
“All I want is an affordable house where my children don’t have to ride two hours to get to school,” she says.
SUYAPA PALAO, 37, has been living in the Best Eastern in Hampton Bays with her six children for almost three months.
Sitting in the cluttered room with her son Abraham, surrounded by toys and piles of dirty laundry, she’s bewildered as to why she’s even here, an hour away from Brentwood, the town she originally called home.
For two years, she shared a two-bedroom house with another family, but was forced to move to a shelter when the children started fighting, she says. The Social Services office in Brentwood directed her to Hampton Bays, saying the motel arrangement would be only temporary.
Now her children, ranging in age from 6 to 16, must get up at 6 a.m. to take a one-hour bus ride back to their school in Brentwood, and often don’t return to the motel until 4 p.m.
She’s bitter, she says, because she originally moved to Brentwood from The Bronx, giving up a $160-a-month apartment because she thought her children would have a better life on Long Island.
But the Hamptons isn’t up to snuff.
“I don’t feel good about being here in this little room,” Palao confesses through a translator. “This is not what I moved here for. I came here from Honduras 17 years ago, and all I want is for my children to have a better life.
As the affluent towns battle over issues of who should live in the Hamptons – and where – Suyapa Palao says she wants no part of the debate.
“These people need to understand that I’m not here because I want to be here,” she says. “All I want for my family is a little house to call my own and a car.
“I just want what is best for my children.”