County Plays Catch-Up With Its Home Work : Stepped-Up Efforts to Provide Housing for Migrants Lag Behind Other Regions

In Salinas, in Modesto, in the agricultural strongholds of the Central Valley, a migrant farm worker leads a tough life.

Come quitting time each day, however, a worker can usually head home to a place with a solid roof overhead, be it a humble apartment or a state-subsidized farm labor center.

All too often, that is not the case in San Diego County.

For years, many migrant field hands have shuffled off to far more squalid accommodations--crude spider holes dug in canyon hillsides or cramped hooches of plastic sheeting and scrap lumber. Such encampments dot the agriculture-rich North County.

Call it the shame of San Diego, call it a sad outgrowth of the insular border economy, but the vexing problem of migrant housing in the region has been virtually ignored through the years by local government officials, agricultural interests and the public.

Efforts to Provide Housing

Until now. With the new immigration law taking grip and a residential development boom that is encroaching on the impoverished camps, authorities have launched efforts to provide housing for the migrant workers.

Assemblyman Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad) is expected to introduce legislation soon that would pump $500,000 into the county as seed money for farm-worker housing. Area officials also are looking at $12 million in state migrant housing funds and $4 million now available from the federal government through the immigration act.

On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors is expected to take up the issue and order authorities to press full speed ahead to find solutions. Earlier this month, Frazee’s office convened a meeting of leaders from throughout North County, targeting long-term remedies such as a nonprofit housing coalition that could oversee construction of new units and rehabilitation of existing quarters for farmhands.

But the efforts come amid a crisis atmosphere. Authorities began cracking down on the encampments, citing health reasons, before they even considered where the migrant workers would go,

critics contend.

In particular, attention has focused on Valle Verde, an imperiled camp that once numbered more than 400 inhabitants hunkered in the folds of a mesa on the southern flank of Carlsbad. The last of those migrants must be out of the camp by Wednesday, making the need for short-term housing alternatives all the more readily apparent.

Even as authorities in San Diego County shift into a higher gear, the push to provide farm-worker housing lags years behind other regions of the state.

In agricultural enclaves to the north, the state for years has helped subsidize construction of more than 2 dozen farm-labor centers to house workers and their families, asking only a few dollars a week for rent.

But not in San Diego County. Although the county ranks 12th in California in volume of agricultural products, local authorities have typically failed to tap state assistance to provide farm-worker housing. In some cases, officials weren’t even aware that money was available for migrant housing.

The dearth of housing has only encouraged the growth of the migrant camps. Marcus Brown, staff attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, said camps in San Diego County far outnumber migrant enclaves elsewhere in the state.

Migrants Living in Caves

“In Salinas we’ve found migrants living in caves and broccoli crates, in Santa Rosa under bridges, in Modesto under freeway overpasses,” Brown said. “So you find those conditions all over the state, but not in the large numbers you have in San Diego.”

The reasons behind the proliferation of the camps are many and complex, but most experts agree that basic laws of supply and demand as well as the astronomical cost of rents and real estate in the area have fueled the problem.

With its proximity to the border, the county has traditionally had a surplus of illegal aliens to serve as the labor force for menial tasks ranging from work in the fields to jobs at restaurants or hotels. Because housing costs in the area rank among the most expensive in the nation, many of those aliens turned to the encampments as an alternative.

The well-hidden camps kept the migrants better insulated from raids by immigration authorities and allowed them to avoid transportation costs to and from work. By avoiding hefty rents, the immigrants could also save money to dispatch to needy relatives in their impoverished homelands.

Rents Lower in Other Regions

In contrast, pools of farm workers in other parts of the state have typically consisted of a much higher percentage of documented workers, men with families and a greater sense of stability. Rents are also lower in those regions, allowing farm workers a chance to tap the general housing market.

David Arizemendi, a former regional director for the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board, said that union efforts elsewhere in the state have meant higher wages for farm workers, giving them a better chance to seek adequate housing. Indeed, the true long-term solution to the housing problem, he suggested, is higher wages for farm workers.

“If you look at how much money a tomato picker makes and look at the cost of what it takes to rent an apartment, he can’t do it,” Arizemendi said. “San Diego is one of the highest areas in terms of rental costs and probably the lowest in wages for farm workers. The underlying root of that is that they’ve typically been undocumented and therefore can be exploited.”

Local growers chafe at such sentiments. Charley Wolk, president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, said talk of unionization as a way to improve housing conditions for workers “is just smoke,” an example of the “bum rap” the county’s agricultural industry has suffered over the migrant housing issue.

“Sure, if you dig hard enough you can find an agricultural employer who has exploited,” Wolk said. “But to lay that on the whole industry is pure nonsense. It’s not because we’re altruistic, goody-two-shoes or excessively liberal in our thinking. It’s just that it’s not good business. I can’t operate my business exploiting people.”

Typically Paid Minimum Wage

Wolk argued that higher wages, together with the hefty cost of water borne by local farmers, could price San Diego County out of the agriculture market. (Farm workers are typically paid the state minimum wage of $4.25 per hour.)

Wolk also noted that no other industry is expected to provide housing for its workers.

Nonetheless, many farmers are rushing to do just that, worried about losing newly legalized employees to other, more profitable professions such as construction.

“Housing is just one more incentive,” said Erwin Mojonnier, an Encinitas flower grower. “If they had to spend a lot of money on an apartment somewhere else, they’d probably have to try to find a higher-paying job, and I’d lose a good employee.”

Often, however, farmers trying to provide housing for their employees have run into roadblocks ranging from red tape to opposition from neighbors, Wolk said. Last year, for example, Singh Farms of Oceanside proposed a 350-bed labor camp for its employees, but the project was stalled for months after nearby residents complained.

County officials, meanwhile, suggest that they, too, have been unfairly criticized for the dearth of housing opportunities being provided the newly legalized migrants.

Gloria Valencia-Cothran, an administrative assistant to North County Supervisor John MacDonald, said the county’s hands were tied before the new immigration legislation because farmers were using mostly undocumented workers.

“Before the new law went into effect, not only could the county not house them, but no one could house them,” she said. “You could hire them, you could feed them, you could give them clothes, but you could not house them. You cannot house someone breaking the law. It’s called harboring a criminal.”

Moreover, although some consider the problem an agrarian issue, that could prove misguided, Valencia-Cothran said, noting that many of the newly documented are in professions other than farming. She pointed to a study conducted by a North County group providing English instruction to newly legalized migrants that indicates that only about one out of three immigrants is employed in agriculture.

“In the case of those people not in agriculture, we’ll have to look for low-income housing,” she said. “They’ll be competing with everyone else, all the homeless. And there’s simply no low-income housing in North County.”

Despite such daunting factors, some remain optimistic that the newly legalized migrants will eventually assimilate into the housing market.

“The problem is going to melt away rather than change from bad to good overnight,” reasoned Wolk of the Farm Bureau. “I think we will see these people leave the camps in the same way that we saw them come out of the shadows after the immigration law passed. . . . They’ll discover, ‘Wait a minute, there is a way to do it.’ ”