Study to focus on farmworker housing
UPDATE 11/16/2016 6 PM: The Salinas City Council agreed Tuesday night to fund a research study on the housing needs of farm workers. The plan now needs approval by four South Monterey County cities – Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield, and King City – to move forward.
PREVIOUS STORY: Cities and counties across the Central Coast are trying to address a problem plaguing our area’s largest industry – Finding housing for thousands of farm workers in the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
Salinas, four South County cities, and Monterey and Santa Cruz counties are hoping to pursue a massive yearlong study to find out more about the need. The last time a study of this scope was completed was in 2001. The plan is to start interviewing farm workers and their employees in the spring, when harvesting begins.
Agriculture on the Central Coast is a multi-billion dollar business, but local advocates say the people who help feed our country are barely making it because of expensive housing.
“We hear that a number of the single men, unaccompanied farm workers, are living in existing residential developments, renting one bedroom units where you have many ten of them, piled up,” Alfred Diaz-Infante, president and CEO of Chispa, said. “Or some of them are renting garages, some are renting shacks or sheds in somebody’s back yard, and that’s what we want to understand.”
That’s why these local governments are spending more than $300,000 to learn more about farm workers. Some of the questions they want to answer – How many farm workers are here? Where are they living? How much more housing is needed?
Salinas City Manager Ray Corpuz said ag companies are seeing a worker shortage because there’s nowhere to house them. As a city that’s trying to brand itself as an ag tech hub, it’s an issue that needs addressing.
“The results will be critical as our city moves forward and how the old ag industry moves forward,” Corpuz said. “You know we’ve been developing this hub of excellence and helping solve the housing crisis in farm worker housing will be an important part of how we do well in terms of promoting our agriculture and dealing with the agriculture industry.”
Tanimura & Antle has done its part, opening residential housing onsite, capable of holding up to 800 employees. But it’s not enough, which is why these partners hope they can take this data to Sacramento.
“There is a program that is currently unfunded called the Joe Serna Jr. Farmworker Grant Program, and if we can make our case in Sacramento that we need the state to fund this program, that will help us provide more housing for people in the ag industry here in the Salinas Valley,” Diaz-Infante said.
ORIGINAL POST:
The Salinas City Council is expected to approve plans Tuesday night to conduct a study of the housing needs of farm workers in the Salinas and Pajaro valleys.
The council will be asked to approve the hiring of the California Institute for Rural Studies to conduct the study and authorize up to $115,000 in 2016-17 Measure G funds to help pay for it.
The study is seen as a critical step in addressing the shortage of appropriate farm worker housing in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
Alfred Diaz-Infante, president/CEO of CHISPA (Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association) told KION the last study of the Salinas and Pajaro valleys was in 2001.
The total amount of the agreement is not to exceed $300,850. In all, Salinas expects to spend $235,000 of Measure G funds. Additional funding is coming from Monterey County ($25,000), Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments ($20,000), Santa Cruz County ($20,000) and $5,000 each from the cities of Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield, King City, and Watsonville.
Tonight at 5 and 6 p.m., KION’s Mariana Hicks reports on the study and what local leaders hope it will accomplish.
