Napa Growers to Build Housing for Harvesters

Veteran farm worker Salvador Servin wears his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, to protect him from the unforgiving sun and perhaps block out injustices he’s seen in his dozen years of toil in California’s growing fields.

Whether picking oranges and lemons in the San Joaquin Valley or apples in Sonoma County, he has watched managers dismiss the concerns of desperate migrant laborers, often forcing them to sleep outdoors in makeshift camps or even in the very fields they spend all day working.

“When it comes to providing us a place to sleep, many owners look the other way,” said the 62-year-old Mexican native, his face creased by sunlight and age. “They tell you ‘It isn’t my problem.’ They don’t care what happens at night as long as you show up for work at dawn the next day.”

Napa County has been different, however. Every year, Servin and 2,500 other seasonal workers return to these fertile vineyards, attracted by the better-than-average $11 hourly wage in a community that has generally shown more regard for its itinerant grape pickers, running several camps with bunk-style housing for up to 175 workers.

In a state that has historically turned its back on the people who harvest its food, Napa County this month took another bold step: Voters overwhelmingly approved a move to nearly triple the available housing.

Measure L loosens zoning restrictions so growers can section off small swaths of land and build shelters for a countywide total of 300 additional workers. And local agriculture interests could soon assess themselves a new tax to pay for the dorms.

As a result of the new measure, passed March 5, bulldozers will soon break ground on the Phelps Project--a 60-bed camp to be built on eight acres of former vineyard land along the Napa River.

Tom Shelton, president of Joseph Phelps Vineyards, explained why his company stepped forward with land: “If we want these professional field workers to return year after year, then we better take care of them and provide them with suitable housing.”

“Napa has done well for itself, and it’s embarrassing to have field laborers living under bridges and on steps of the Catholic church. It’s unacceptable.”

Passed by an overwhelming 71%, Measure L opens the way for growers to tax themselves as much as $10 an acre to help finance worker housing. Local agricultural interests--including more than 250 wineries--are forming an advisory committee to assess community needs before voting on the tax.

Experts believe Napa’s plan could be used as a national model for farm worker housing. But others say that what works for this small and wealthy region would become unwieldy in places like the great Central Valley, an 18-county seasonal home to tens of thousands of itinerant workers.

Roy Gabriel, legislative director of labor affairs for the California Farm Bureau, said growers fear they could soon be required to tax themselves for similar programs.

“If you’re going to mandate growers to provide housing, every business in the state should have to do it,” he said. “It would be a disaster. Business and industry would flee the state. What happens in one tiny little valley really can’t be applied to the rest of the state.”

Philip Martin, a UC Davis labor economist, says the Napa Valley has other reasons to reach out to its migrant population: Millions of tourists who travel up and down California 29 through the heart of the vineyards.

“Growers can’t afford to let tourists see people living in shantytowns right next to mansions,” Martin said. “But you have to give them credit: People have worked to change laws in a county that is very oriented toward land preservation. There’s no other place in California I know of where growers impose a tax on themselves.”

Like other areas, Napa has struggled to incorporate its seasonal work force both economically and culturally.

Since migrants arrived in force in the 1970s, when Napa received its first serious recognition as a home for world-class wines, laborers have endured a “have, have-not” existence here--shopping in grocery stores priced for well-heeled buyers that for years did not even stock the tortillas, refried beans and other basic staples they eat back home.

Housing remains a thorny issue: As local grape acreage has risen dramatically--from 17,500 in 1976 to 40,000 this year--migrant housing has plummeted. The number of beds has dropped by more than half since the 1990s--from 400 to 177 beds, according to a UC Davis study Martin conducted this year on farm worker conditions in Napa.

Now half a dozen workers will often share cramped one-bedroom apartments. Others sleep in cardboard boxes or vie for space at churches or county-run shelters.

“Last year I turned away hundreds of people who needed a place to sleep,” said Angel Calderon, camp manager at the county-run shelter in Calistoga. “It’s hard. Because you know they have no place to go other than to sleep under a bridge someplace. But we had no beds.”

Father John Brenkle, pastor at St. Helena Catholic Church, has erected sleeping quarters for 50 or more workers during harvest season to ease the housing demand.

But not everyone in the wealthy parish is pleased with the move.

“These workers show up here with nothing more than the clothes on their back, but there’s still a misconception among some people that they’re loafers. People think these men come just because we take care of their needs,” he said. “We’re trying to educate them that these people are paid so little, they can’t find a place of their own.”

Rosa Segura, a farm worker housing advocate, in 1999 helped open a tent city for workers on county land as a way to bring attention to the issue. As a result, the county formed a commission to study the problem, eventually leading to the passage of Measure L.

Segura said her worst moment in the struggle came the day a local newspaper published two stories about wealth in a county she said was dragging its heels on providing for its seasonal workers. “On the same day there was a story about how the wine industry brings in $33.8 billion a year into the state economy and another about how a local grower was donating 247 acres to a land trust,” she said.

“We didn’t think we were asking too much for a few acres to be devoted to housing workers who are the backbone of this successful local industry.”

Pat Garvey agrees. The owner of Flora Springs Winery and Vineyards became a member of the county’s migrant housing committee because he was ashamed of the conditions he saw. “I’d drive down the road in my tractor and see these guys sleeping along the Napa River in cardboard boxes,” he said. “I knew we could do better.”

Garvey says many newcomers don’t appreciate the backbreaking labor of picking grapes.

During a recent shortage of workers, Garvey one Saturday hired a dozen teenagers from the local high school basketball team. “They were gone by noon,” he recalled. “They couldn’t handle the work.”

As Napa gears up for another annual grape harvest this fall, some residents question how soon the new migrant housing will come.

“I don’t think the 300 beds will be added in my lifetime--and I’m 70 years old and hope I’m going to be around some time yet,” said Father Brenkle. “Who’s going to donate the land?”

At up to $200,000 an acre, growers acknowledge that Napa Valley land comes at a premium.

“Look at the land values,” Garvey said. “Who the heck is gonna say, ‘Here, take these five acres for farm worker housing’?”

Though the new beds may be slow in coming, Salvador Servin called the move a good first step.

“This time,” he said in Spanish, “the migrants have won.”