Study highlights need for farm worker housing on Central Coast

A recent study highlighted the massive need for farm worker housing on the Central Coast.

The California Institute for Rural Studies worked with Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, the city of Salinas as well as central coast communities.

18 months were spent trying to find out who the farm workers are, how many live in the area, who are they here with and where do they live. Now that the information has been documented it can be used to help solve the farm worker housing crisis.

The farmworker housing study found there were more than 91,000 farm workers in the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys. Most of the farm workers surveyed live in rental homes or apartments.

While nearly half of the farm workers had issues with basic housing conditions, a bigger problem is overcrowding and thousands of units are needed just to handle that.

“Initially 47,937 additional units but if we were just to try to maintain the number of units that are currently subsidized we’re looking at 6,351 units,” said Community Development Director, Megan Hunter.

Local ag giants are trying to do what they can to help the housing crisis. For example, Tanimura and Antle’s “Spreckels crossing,” that houses its employees.

Another ag giant is trying to do something similar.

Housing program manager, Monterey Bay economic partnership, Matt Huerta said, “Foxy produce, or the Nunez family moved forward with starting construction on their 600 bed facility just adjacent to Salinas but it’s in Monterey County, and they are starting the process of finishing up buildings so they can start moving in some of their employees.”

While projects like Casa Boronda will help with initial need, the study found that there’s an even bigger one for farm worker families.

“We’ve learned from the study it’s not just individual 20-30 somethings out there, certainly that’s the workforce but they are part of families so we need housing that responds to their needs as members of families and that was one of the key things that came out of the study that we really didn’t know of before,” Huerta said.

The draft version of the action plan calls for 5,300 permanent affordable housing units over the next five years. It also tackles regulations that they believe make it more difficult and finds different sources of funding.

“Most recently the state passed SB 2, which it’s a small step towards some housing funding and it would produce about $250 million a year the first year, which would be used for planning reforms which is something we’re really interested in because we did notice that regulatory reforms are needed to facilitate farm workers housing,” said Hunter.

The action plan is still in its draft form. In the coming weeks, the agencies and communities involved will work on refining and implementing parts of the plan.