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| ON THE ROAD? | |
 December 25, 1998 
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ROD MINOTT: This autumn brought a busy harvest across the orchards of the mid Columbia River Valley. Hundreds of workers arrived to pick what was expected to be a record crop of Washington State apples. Some of these pickers are legal residents, but many others are not. About half are illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. At sundown near the orchards the Gomez family prepares dinner. The family of six has followed harvests from California to Washington State. Like many other workers, they've been unable to find housing here, so they pitched a tent on some public land just footsteps from the Columbia River. As Maria Gomez makes dinner, her four-month-old son lies nearby in a tent filled with flies. Gomez says homelessness has been especially harsh on the infant, who is ill with asthma. MARIA GOMEZ: (speaking through interpreter) It's very, very difficult. The doctors have told me to keep him out of the dirt and the wind and the smoke, and it's impossible in this situation. He's very sick right now, but I'm stuck here. We don't have any money. We can't go back to California, and yet, here we can't find any housing, so we're stuck at this place. ROD MINOTT: Thousands of farm workers like the Gomezes go without basic safe and sanitary housing when harvesting the state's lucrative fruit trees, an industry valued at about $2 billion a year. LUPE GAMBOA, United Farm Workers Union: You know, the growers get a lot more production and a lot more money per acre. ROD MINOTT: Lupe Gamboa is with the United Farm Workers Union. LUPE GAMBOA: It's pretty bad. I mean, the estimates are that there is a shortage of 30,000/40,000 beds in the state, in - and it's especially severe in areas like here in the Columbia Basin where you have huge factory type orchards that have been planted recently, often a thousand acres at a time, you know, such as this one here, but no provision for housing. ROD MINOTT: Four decades ago, the landmark documentary, "Harvest of Shame," publicized the squalor of migrant farm workers. SPOKESMAN: We live anywhere, in a tent, under a shade tree, under a river bridge. We drink water out of a creek or anywhere we can get it. We are to blame. We tolerate that stuff. If we stick together and say we won't do it, won't pick your cherries until you give us some rest rooms in the fields for the ladies, some for the men, and some water fit to drink, we won't pick them, we'd get them. ROD MINOTT: Since this documentary aired, government officials and farm worker advocates say little has changed for migrant workers. According to a rural housing organization, today in America 800,000 farm workers lack adequate shelter. In Eastern Washington State the farming town of Mattawa provides a dramatic example. A decade ago the community had 200 people. Today, 2,000 residents live here year-round. During harvest season, from April to November, the town's population swells to more than 5,000. As a result, many people end up in overcrowded trailer parks. It's not unusual to find ten to twenty people living in a trailer. Farm worker Vicente Naguerra lives in a trailer with five other men. VICENTE NAGUERRA: (speaking through interpreter) It's not very comfortable here. There's no air conditioning. It gets very hot in here. And in the winter I'm afraid the heating isn't going to work. We also don't have any beds, no beds to speak of. We have to lie on the floor and you really can't get a good night's rest on the floor, but that's all there is; there's nothing else. ROD MINOTT: Rent is typically 350 to 500 dollars a month, plus a 50 dollar additional charge per person. It's estimated that about half the state's 150,000 farm workers are here illegally. SPOKESPERSON: How many are in the trailer park right now, Randy? RANDY: Probably a thousand. SPOKESPERSON: About a thousand. ROD MINOTT: Mattawa's mayor, Judy Esser points out that small towns like hers have simply been overwhelmed of the job of providing services for farm workers. MAYOR JUDY ESSER, Mattawa, Washington: Presently, the town of Mattawa - it's less than 35,000 dollars in real property taxes. So, as far as the town, the overcrowding has cost us a tremendous amount of money. You know, our infrastructure has been just nothing; it was basically designed for less than 500 people. ROD MINOTT: The town is just now building a sewer system. Until it's finished, septic tanks at trailer parks continue to spill raw sewage into streets and yards. County health inspector Charlotte Blanchard says she's alarmed by the lack of sanitation. With little housing in Mattawa, many farm workers camp outside of town by the banks of the Colombia River. CHARLOTTE BLANCHARD, Health Inspector: This is a camp site that's going to be used. ROD MINOTT: This camp site houses about 500 migrant workers. Health inspector Blanchard says many migrants use the river for bathing and washing. CHARLOTTE BLANCHARD: Because the people don't have any other places to go or the facilities. They come down to wash their dishes in the water, and also they wash their clothes, and you've got your bleach and your soaps, and there's clean clothes hanging in the trees to dry. ROD MINOTT: Even though portable toilets have been set up, many workers continue to use surrounding bushes. CHARLOTTE BLANCHARD: Rod, if you'll look back in through here, people are not using the porta potties. This is probably 20 feet from the open water at the Columbia River. ROD MINOTT: Inspector Blanchard calls the situation a severe public health menace. CHARLOTTE BLANCHARD: I can tell them to use the porta potty, but I'm not here 24 hours a day. ROD MINOTT: Already, she sees diseases one would expect to find in third world countries. Even so, Blanchard says she's reluctant to evict workers from sites like this. CHARLOTTE BLANCHARD: Well, there just really isn't a place to go. Do workers have to be here to do the work? Our economy in Grant County is an agricultural base. If we can't get the fruit in, then the whole county suffers economically. ROD MINOTT: But with the average farm worker earning about $6700 annually, Gamboa says growers should pay higher salaries so workers can afford better shelter. LUPE GAMBOA: Up until the 60's employers should provide housing in order to attract workers, and then you started getting huge waves of immigrant workers coming in from Mexico. As employers, they didn't have to provide housing anymore, so they got out of the housing business. ROD MINOTT: No law requires growers to provide housing for their workers, and, in fact, most growers do not. Only about 200 farms provide camps licensed by the state. LON INABA, Vegetable Farmer: Here's a typical unit. We've got four units just like this. ROD MINOTT: One such farm is owned by Lon Inaba, a third generation vegetable grower in the Yakima Valley. In 1989, using a low-interest federal loan, he built housing that can accommodate up to 48 workers. LON INABA: Well, I think it's worth it. It's just - you're taking care of the people who are taking care of you, and that's kind of our philosophy out here. ROD MINOTT: It also makes good business sense. By providing housing, Inaba can attract a steady and loyal work force for his crops. He now grows a wide variety of vegetables that require work year-round. Others, like cherry grower Nick Fox say government regulations make housing unaffordable. Fox's orchard has been in his family for three generations. For years, he maintained a camp site on the property for his pickers. But Fox closed the camp this year. He says it would have cost him $3/4 million to comply with new state housing standards. They would have forced him to replace tents with barracks for his workers. NICK FOX, Cherry Grower: You know, I look at it the same way. I mean, you know, you guys have jobs and your employer doesn't provide you with a place to live; you go find one, and this is the same thing. I mean, this is a business; this isn't - this isn't a humanitarian system up here - it's a business. It does what it needs to, to survive, and it has to maintain costs like any other business. ROD MINOTT: Fox also points out that unlike other fruit crops, a cherry harvest season lasts only several weeks. He says it's unfair to require him to build expensive barracks that would stand empty for 11 months of the year. Opposing sides in the debate over farm worker housing remain at an impasse, so the state has stepped in to help. SPOKESPERSON: The windows, as you can see, they're broken, they're covered, and they don't repair them. ROD MINOTT: Governor Gary Locke recently toured Mattawa and said he plans to make farm worker housing a top legislative priority. Already, the state has allocated about $4 million to build new housing. That will help shelter about 450 people in the Mattawa area, but farm worker advocates say the price tag to solve the housing crisis in Washington State could top $300 million. And with little public clamoring to help farm workers, many fear scenes of homelessness like this along the banks of the Columbia River will only grow worse. |
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