Migrant Housing

* For nearly a decade, the reporter-photographer team of Patrick McDonnell and Don Bartletti have performed a uniquely valuable service to the San Diego community, through their extensive documentation of the appalling living conditions of Latino migrant workers in this county. Their latest series of articles (“Out in the Cold,” March 31 and “Migrant Architecture,” April 1) is a particularly illuminating and disturbing overview of the subject.

McDonnell and Bartletti find some progress, notably the construction of dormitory-style housing by a single North County agricultural employer. They point out, however, that this project was completed “despite relentless community opposition;” that it provides housing only for the firm’s own employees; and that undocumented workers are excluded. This case provides little encouragement that a general solution to the migrant housing problem is close at hand.

Most industrialized countries around the world--even Japan--now depend to some extent on foreign-born labor to perform low-skilled work. No other industrialized nation has done less to assure decent housing for its foreign labor force than the United States. No other county in the United States has tolerated the existence of subhuman living conditions for foreign workers longer than San Diego.

There is no shortage of scientific research about the characteristics of San Diego’s migrant workers, why they are here, and why they find it necessary to dwell in “unconventional” housing. Nor is there a dearth of sound recommendations, from groups like the San Diego County’s Transborder Affairs Advisory Board, which issued a major report in January, on how San Diego could begin to address the deficit of housing for its “working homeless” population.

Ultimately, however, many more employers must be induced to accept their share of responsibility--and not just for the housing of legalized immigrants. More of our local public officials must be convinced that basic solutions will not come from Washington or Sacramento. If our elected officials feel uncomfortable dealing directly with the problem, the least they can do is to support and facilitate the efforts of church and other private voluntary organizations that actively assist the county’s migrants.

Economically privileged residents of the county must recognize that blaming the victims and calling upon police and immigration agents to chase them from one vacant lot, canyon or street corner to the next will accomplish nothing but compound the misery of those displaced and create a problem for some new group of homeowners.

The general public should look beyond the short-sighted, self-serving efforts of some local politicians and media personalities to inflame passions about the migrant presence and begin to press for more humane, effective, long-term approaches to the problem.

What is needed is an appropriate sense of outrage, channeled toward constructive attempts to ameliorate the situation.

WAYNE A. CORNELIUS

Director

Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies

UC San Diego