Report Offers Suggestions to Mend Poway’s Migrant Problems : Immigrants: Panel formed after last year’s racial incident urges reforms for legal migrants, but elimination of the camps of illegal workers.

If Poway can bring its legal migrants into the mainstream of the community, by providing housing and full-time jobs for the newcomers, ethnic friction will wane in the North County community, a new city report says.

In contrast to its charitable attitude toward legal immigrants, the report called for wiping out the makeshift encampments of illegal workers in the city.

The report is the result of a 16-month study by a citizens’ committee formed early last year, after a Poway teen-ager reported that she had been raped by several migrants and sheriff’s deputies rounded up more than 80 Latino men, women and children for questioning. The rape charges later were found to be baseless.

“We have the same problems as anyone else,” said Rick Howard, city management analyst who provided staff support to the nine-member group. “Migrants are involved in minor crimes, shoplifting, drunkenness, loitering in the evening and on weekends. But, as the report points out, the rate of crime among migrants here is about the same as the population at large.”

Bob Emery, Poway councilman and an Escondido schoolteacher, started the Migrant Worker Relations Committee after the mass arrest of migrants raised racial tensions in the community.

In its report, to be presented to the Poway City Council in September, the committee also blasts state and federal officials for leaving the burden of the alien problem to local governments.

“With the abdication of federal and state authorities of their responsibilities in these areas of social services, housing, legal assistance, etc., other agencies must pick up the slack, and most often that agency is the city,” the report states.

“We are in a refugee situation, but without normal assistance given to refugees such as temporary housing, medical relief, legal aid and relocation assistance.

“At no other time in our history have we thrown open the doors to such a mass migration without providing at least the barest support for the immigrants. The federal government, for all intents and purposes, has washed its hands of the ensuing impacts and has, in effect, declared the border open,” the report states.

The report offers nine recommendations for improving relations that clearly define benefits for the city’s more permanent, legal migrant population and call for removal of the outlying migrant camps occupied mainly by undocumented workers.

“For health and safety reasons, the city of Poway should continue to pursue the elimination of illegal migrant camps,” the report recommended. The Poway City Council had begun consideration of an ordinance outlawing the makeshift migrant encampments last year but suspended its action until the committee studied the issue.

During its discussions, “no topic was more difficult to focus upon than illegal encampments,” the report said. “The committee made field visits to camps and occupied ‘abandoned’ houses. The squalor, safety hazards and lack of sanitation facilities were overwhelming.

“The lack of sanitation facilities within the camps is obvious. Toilet facilities are the open ground. The ‘shower’ at one camp was a waterfall created by runoff. Cooking facilities range from open fires to Coleman stoves to makeshift propane ‘stoves.’

“All of the above conditions dictate that the city of Poway continue its policy of camp eradication,” the report concludes.

The Poway group rejected the idea of establishing a Poway migrant hiring hall after visiting the one in Encinitas.

Richard Rauch, one of the committee members, explained that “we don’t have the same problem here of large numbers of migrants congregating on street corners to wait for work,” he said. “I don’t think the reason for the (Encinitas) hiring hall was to help the migrants. I think it was to pacify the residents and merchants. After talking with them, it didn’t seem to be working all that well, anyway. It only works if the employers cooperate.”

However, another committee member, Helen Wilson, felt that the Encinitas hiring hall was “a very successful operation” that should be copied in Poway. She pointed out that the Encinitas hall also serves the education of the migrant workers and their families and disseminates information to them.

“We did accomplish a lot that really needed to get done and met most of our goals,” Wilson said. “I think that we needed to do more, but we just couldn’t get everything done.”

Housing for legal migrants, especially those with families, “probably was the No. 1 issue” the committee tackled, Howard said.

Among the committee recommendations to provide migrant housing:

* Adoption of a City Council policy requiring that adequate housing be available for agricultural workers, either on the work site or elsewhere. Amend some city zoning and land-use codes to allow for farm-worker housing and mobile homes.

* Use of city redevelopment agency funds to provide rent subsidies for migrant workers, especially those with families.

* Designation of temporary housing during inclement weather at locations around Poway, including church social halls, community centers and senior-citizen buildings, social and fraternal organizations and the Lake Poway pavilion.

Construction of “mini-barracks” at or near sites of migrant worker job sites was discussed in the report, but not recommended because the dormitory-type structures are “inconsistent with the General Plan.”

Other recommendations of the committee dealt with creation of a regional organization “to apply political pressure” for legislation to address the national problem of immigration; dissemination of information, in both Spanish and English, about the programs available; creation of a community awareness program “to alleviate fears and misunderstandings and promote openness throughout the community”; and expansion of educational opportunities for Poway’s new migrant population.

Roy Perez, one of the committee members, said the group worked innumerable hours trying to resolve differences of opinion and exploring avenues that would lead to a better understanding between Poway residents and the new migrant population.

“We wanted to defuse the situation. We brought in a lot of people with expertise; we asked a lot of opinions; we visited other communities to find out what they were doing and how it was working. We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel,” Perez said.

Howard said the committee will meet for a final session Monday to give final approval to their report. It then will go to the City Council for consideration.