Encinitas Launches Migrant Labor Survey : Sociology: Critics are suspicious of motives as the city begins distributing questionnaires about workers’ living conditions.

Encinitas this week began conducting a survey of the living conditions among migrant laborers--a study farm worker advocates claim is biased and should have been handled by an outside agency.

Members of the city’s Homeless Task Force began distributing a four-page, 27-question survey among migrant workers in an effort to learn social and demographic information--as well as specific problems they encounter finding work and shelter--in order to plan programs.

On Thursday, task force members provided the survey to local agencies that come in contact with migrant workers. Next week, a three-member survey team will begin soliciting responses at four citywide locations known to be popular among migrants seeking day labor.

“It’s an attempt to get a focus on the total picture for homeless migrants in Encinitas,” said Pamela Slater, one of two City Council members on the task force. “The numbers of the migrant workers out there are always going to be sketchy. But we’re trying to draw a bead on the services they might need.”

Migrant advocates, however, fear that the city might have ulterior motives for its survey. Encinitas is defending a lawsuit claiming that the housing element of its General Plan has erected barriers for the formation of low-cost housing that would benefit migrant workers.

“You would think that a city in the throes of such litigation would have gone to a respectable outside source rather than tackling such a study itself,” said Claudia Smith, an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, an migrant advocacy group that sued the city in 1989 on behalf of several migrant workers.

“Conducted by people with such obvious biases, the survey is just too open to question. There are too many vested interests at work here. And gray areas as to how they’re going to use the information.”

Smith and other migrant advocates question why the city failed to consult an outside source as was done last year when Oceanside officials staged a similar survey of homeless migrant conditions.

The recently completed Oceanside survey was conducted by a team of graduate sociology students from San Diego State University under the supervision of two department professors.

The graduate students designed and processed the survey, which was conducted in the field by more than a dozen migrant workers--who were paid for their services along with the respondents. Encinitas is not paying those who take part in its survey, which is expected to be completed by the end of March.

“Paying the people was a way to let them know we were serious about what we were doing,” said Dr. Warner Bloomberg Jr., who helped supervise the study, adding that the three-weeklong survey produced 141 responses.

Encinitas officials defended their study, saying their survey is based on the Oceanside questionnaire. They also consulted Dr. Bloomberg before launching the study, officials say.

“We have a task force comprised of people with a record of helping the migrant community--they were selected for that reason,” Slater said. “And we got some guidance from Dr. Bloomberg.”

Bloomberg said he met with Encinitas task force members for about an hour to help tailor the Oceanside study to the situation in Encinitas. “I haven’t seen their final questionnaire and methodology,” he said.

“But if you have a good questionnaire and sampling procedure and interviewees with good linguistic abilities whom people can trust, their test can be valid.”

The Encinitas questionnaire includes several revisions to account for an Encinitas migrant population that is settled within urban areas rather than existing in isolated areas as they do in Oceanside.

“For example, we’ve heard that many migrants weren’t using our job center because they couldn’t get there,” Slater said. “So we added questions about the availability of public service transportation when they needed it.”

Other survey questions include where and how many days a week the migrant laborers work, what type of housing they prefer and how much they can afford to pay.

When it comes to housing, the questionnaire has certain biases, says the Rev. Rafael Martinez, executive director of the North County Chaplaincy, one agency asked to distribute the survey.

One question, for example, asks which type of living arrangement would be most preferred--listing answers that include a small tent, big tent, a trailer or dormitory, or other.

“Most of the people who I have seen answer have responded ‘other,’ ” Martinez said. “They say they want an apartment just like anyone else. The assumption here is that all these people are happy living in camps. And that’s just not true.”

City officials say their research has told them that many migrant workers set limits on what they spend on housing--preferring to send most of their money back home to family and loved ones--making such camps a viable alternative.

In any event, Martinez remains cautious over what good such surveys can do. “This isn’t the first such survey that’s been done,” he said. “And often, after they’re all done, not a darn thing is done about the migrant homeless situation.

“You don’t need a survey to see that there’s a shortage of migrant worker housing and that conditions for these people are deplorable. All you have to do is look for yourself.”