San Diego’s Squalid Camps

The thousands of migrant workers and their families who live in makeshift shelters in the brush of San Diego County have traditionally been seen as the “illegal-alien problem.” Now that many, or even most, of them are legal U.S. residents, their living conditions are gradually being seen as a “housing problem.”

The shift in perspective has done little to provide decent, sanitary living conditions for the migrants who live in tarp-covered hooches, but it is a sign of hope, a sign that local officials are beginning to focus on solutions.

The solutions thus far, however, have been aimed mostly at improving the comfort of North County residents in upscale neighborhoods near the camps rather than at improving the lot of the dirt-poor migrants.

More than three dozen camps have been cited by the county for health-code violations in recent months, and most of those have been removed. One of the largest, Valle Verde in Carlsbad, is in jeopardy unless landowners and the county can reach an agreement on temporary improvement.

Code enforcement may temporarily grease the squeaky wheel, but it only moves the migrants to other sites.

It does nothing to address the underlying problem: the lack of decent, affordable housing for migrant workers and a growing number of other Southern Californians.

To a large extent, closing the migrant-worker camps is just the latest crisis facing the homeless.

The squalid camps have been around for years, but government agencies and employers have done little to provide alternatives. That must change. More employers should follow the lead of Singh Farms, which is planning to build a 352-bed dormitory for its farm workers.

But quarters for farm workers will address only part of the problem, especially as agricultural jobs shrink. Barracks-style housing also doesn’t meet the needs of families.

Most of the effort and funding are going to have to come from government--federal, state and local.

One of the glaring inadequacies of the amnesty law was the lack of federal funding to help meet the housing needs of the newly legal immigrants. That’s a wrong that must be righted.

State and local governments share in the blame. San Diego County officials have not applied for existing state migrant-worker housing funds, because they object to a state regulation that the housing must stay vacant six months of the year and because they say that they have not been able to find land for the housing. In addition, the governor vetoed a bill that would have built 100 units, saying that the funds were for rehabilitation, not construction.

Such excuses have to be replaced with flexibility and cooperation. That is especially true in dealing with the immediate problem of what to do with the camps. There is no question that the camps are unhealthy. They lack water and sanitation facilities. But the health problem is probably not an imminent threat to the community.

Until some housing is found for the camp dwellers, it would be better to find ways to improve conditions at the camps rather than shut them down.