Migrant Workers Cram into Cars, Sheds, Boxes
March 31, 2006
by David Olson
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Nowhere in the Inland area is the crunch to house the poor more evident than in the Coachella Valley, where 15,000 migrant workers are expected to arrive in the next few weeks for the grape and citrus harvest.
Most will spend each night outside or crammed in a car or shed, said Nadia Villagran, special projects manager for the Indio-based Coachella Valley Housing Coalition.
"They're working hard during the day and have to sleep at night in cardboard boxes, in a tree or in a car," she said. "It's shocking to see."
Migrant-housing programs in the desert are confronting the same land-price pressures as other Inland projects that serve the homeless.
As subdivisions sweep eastward through the Coachella Valley, replacing crops with rooftops, they are making once-inexpensive agricultural land lucrative investments. The coalition must now compete with deep-pocketed developers for land, said John Aguilar, director of multifamily development for the coalition.
In 1999, when land was much cheaper, the group built the 88-bed Las Maņanitas complex in rural Mecca for seasonal workers. The coalition built a 40-bed second building in 2002 and is planning to add 88 more beds.
Workers pay $30 a week to stay there.
But the complex serves only a fraction of those who need shelter, Aguilar said. During the peak of the harvest, the coalition turns away 200 to 300 applicants a day, he said.
Even many of those who find other housing must endure sleeping in the rented living room or kitchen of dilapidated, severely overcrowded trailers, Villagran said.
Many migrant workers are homeless year-round, she said. As they migrate north to follow the harvests, they face the same housing crunches they do in the desert, she said.
Year-round homeless residents of the Coachella Valley have even fewer long-term options than migrant workers.
The coalition owns 39 units of permanent housing in Cathedral City.
But Casa San Miguel, which opened in 1999, serves only homeless people with chronic illnesses, primarily those with HIV or AIDS.
Episcopal Community Services of San Diego is preparing to start moving 40 homeless people with chronic illnesses into privately owned apartment complexes scattered throughout the Coachella Valley, said Susan Koehler, spokeswoman for group.
The first will be occupied within the next few weeks. But the units will be reserved for mentally ill people.
Martha's Village and Kitchen in Indio is hoping to build permanent housing for the homeless next to its current 125-bed facility within the next three to five years, said the Rev. Joe Carroll, president of San Diego-based Father Joe's Villages, which runs Martha's Village.
The current building in Indio provides shelter for up to two years, along with counseling, substance-abuse treatment, literacy classes and other services.
But, Carroll said, "One of the problems with a transitional-housing program is that, when they're ready to leave, where do we move them to? Housing prices have gone sky-high. People need something they can afford."