The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy

Chapter 6: Bitter Harvest: Housing Conditions of Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers, by Christopher Holden

chapter 6 Bitter Harvest Housing Conditions of Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Christopher Holden Coming Home from the Fields Farmworkers are among the worst-housed groups in the United States. After long hours toiling in the fields, few farmworkers can look forward to a warm shower, clean laundry, or a room to call their own. Even a decent supper is difficult to come by if the stove is broken, the refrigerator does not work, or the place lacks a kitchen altogether. The deplorable housing conditions experienced by many of the nation’s migrant and seasonal farmworkers have been described in journalistic accounts, but little effort has been made to document systematically the nature and prevalence of housing problems farmworkers and their families face.Without adequate data, policymakers and project funders cannot make informed decisions about how to use limited public resources to improve the housing in which farmworkers live. Addressing the Lack of Housing Information Organizations that wish to improve farmworker housing conditions are hampered by a lack of reliable data. Only one national survey of farmworker housing conditions has been done, Final Report: National Farmworker Housing Survey. Mandated by Congress during the Carter Administration and completed in 1980 during the Reagan Administration, it was never published and is now out of date. The study includes interviews with government officials and field investigations of more than twelve hundred farm labor camp and private rental housing sites in sixty-three counties out of the total nine hun- 170 The Human Cost of Food dred counties nationwide that had seasonal and migrant farmworkers (Housing Assistance Council 1996, 16). The study documented a prevalence of older camps with just a few buildings; about one-fourth of the camps lacked heat and plumbing. Laundry facilities were found in only about 20 percent of the camps. Migrant housing was more likely to lack plumbing and heat than the yearround seasonal housing that was studied. Crowded quarters were common , with 62 percent of camps exceeding their legal capacity. Structural problems were also common, with almost half the camps having at least one building where residents were exposed to the elements through structural damage or deterioration. Responding to the need for housing information, the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) began an effort in 1997 to collect and analyze farmworker housing data in the eastern migrant stream. Starting in the summer of 1999, HAC began conducting surveys of farmworker housing conditions in the midwestern and western migrant streams, resulting in a national survey of farmworker housing conditions. HAC is a nonprofit corporation that supports the development of rural low-income housing nationwide through loans from a revolving fund, technical assistance to local organizations, and research. HAC also has extensive experience assisting local nonprofit housing groups to improve the housing available to farmworkers. To conduct the survey, HAC developed a partnership with Farmworker Health Services, Inc. (FHSI), an organization that provides outreach workers on a contract basis to clinics that serve farmworkers in the Eastern migrant stream. Members of the FHSI staff are placed primarily in Florida during the winter season and relocate to agricultural areas northward in the migrant stream for the summer and fall. Working together, HAC and FHSI developed a survey form for FHSI outreach workers to use when they visited farmworkers in their homes, apartments , mobile homes, and at farm labor camps. The survey form was designed so that a great deal of housing information could be collected without disrupting the health care work of FHSI staff. Like the 1980 study of farmworker housing, this research included FHSI staff’s visual observations about the condition of farmworker housing units. Staff members also asked questions of farmworkers living in the units to determine the number of occupants, the cost of the housing , the burden of that housing cost on their incomes, and other relevant information. In the 1980 study, information provided by farmworkers was not 171 Bitter Harvest available because that study was conducted in the off-season in many locations when camp and private rental housing was not occupied by farmworkers. Also, because of the pending 1980 Census, survey workers for the 1980 farmworker housing study were not allowed to conduct interviews with farmworkers in the housing that was occupied. Finally, in many areas it was very difficult to determine when farmworkers were living in private rental housing, and so the 1980 study had only a limited sample...