Campo Polanco, a farm labor camp in the desert in Coachella Valley (Photograph: David Bacon, dbacon@igc.org)
Environmental Health Policy and California’s Farm Labor Housing
A UC Davis Policy Paper on California’s Farm Workers in Overcrowded and Inadequate Housing
California’s demand for hired farm workers has substantially increased, however the supply of employer-provided housing for hired farm workers has sharply declined. This has forced workers to rely on their own meager resources for finding housing. A policy paper released today by UC Davis makes recommendation to improve the housing and the health of farm workers who make significant contributions to the economy but can’t afford California’s high housing prices.
The paper cites findings from the California Agricultural Workers Health Survey (CAWHS), which found that nearly half of dwellings occupied by the state’s hired farm workers are overcrowded, and a quarter are extremely overcrowded. Many of these dwellings are irregular structures not intended for human habitation, and one-sixth lack either plumbing or food preparation facilities, or both. Nearly one-third of CAWHS dwellings were not recognized by the local county assessor or by the U.S. Postal Service.
Prior reports on adverse health outcomes or potentially hazardous environmental exposures associated with farm labor housing conditions seldom suggest a direct link between health status and sub-standard or overcrowded housing. It is known among health professionals that the potential consequences are gastro-intestinal illnesses associated with the lack of a refrigerator and significantly elevated levels of anxiety and depression associated with poor living conditions. Large numbers of unrelated immigrant workers residing together is a risk factor for the spread of infectious diseases that likely originate in the sending countries, including outbreaks of tuberculosis, parasite infections and malaria.
The authors present a series of policy recommendations in their publication:
- Strengthen enforcement of health standards for farm labor housing; the failure of the state’s public health system to intercept and treat a farm laborer with active TB in Santa Barbara County contributed to the infection of dozens of other persons.
- Establish a permanent funding source to increase the supply of safe and affordable housing for farm laborers; Some farm labor housing projects have shown significant success integrating single-family residences with mobile trailers serving unaccompanied workers.
- Create state-mandated shortcuts for the approval of housing intended to serve hired farm workers in counties where there is a demonstrable and substantial unmet demand for safe and affordable housing.
- Do not use of housing vouchers in any existing or proposed guest worker program since there is no evidence that vouchers are a satisfactory method of assuring safe and affordable housing and may provide an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurial labor contractors or their agents to obtain large numbers of substandard trailers and jam in as many workers as possible.
- Create positive incentives to local authorities to meet farm labor housing needs by granting indirect preferences for bond funds to improve local infrastructure.
- Initiate substantial new research on the supply and status of farm labor housing, especially to determine the extent of health hazards.
- Enhance California’s public health workforce, with special attention to hired farm workers, targeting regions with a long-standing history of violations.
- Do not make public funds available to farm employers who wish to provide housing due to the potential risk to employees of having their housing situation controlled by their employers
These problems have been known to policymakers in California for decades. In 1988, the Department of Housing and Community Development issued a comprehensive report based in part on five public hearings convened in communities throughout agricultural areas of the state. In 2000, a California Assembly report on housing for California’s farm laborers stated categorically, “Affordable, safe and sanitary housing is virtually nonexistent for the vast majority of California's farm workers.”
To date, there have been no population-based surveys of farm labor housing conditions throughout California. Testimony in public hearings, summary reports by public agencies, and nearly all submissions of documents or data refer to anecdotal reports or to local surveys, typically at the county level.
One of the most striking findings of the National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS) is that very nearly half (49%) of hired crop farm workers did not reside with even a single member of their nuclear family while working on California farms. Among males, 60% were unaccompanied by any member of their immediate family, whereas just 18% of females were unaccompanied. One-third of all CAWHS participants are unaccompanied while working in California, mostly unmarried men.
Approximately two-thirds of CAWHS participants rent their dwelling. Roughly one in sixteen, only five percent, of the survey participants rent from their employer. The survey results are highly variable from site to site and from region to region.
Agriculture is widely regarded as diminishing in importance in a state where more and more land is converted from farming to residential uses. In this context, it might be thought that farm labor is becoming less significant with each year. But the contrary is the case: California agriculture is now more reliant on hired workers than at any time in the past century as a consequence of major increases in the amount of land used for fruit and vegetable production. Annual production of grapes, tree fruits and vegetables in the state has steadily increased from 21 million tons in the early 1970s to 34 million tons in the early 2000s. Another change in the farm labor market is the increase of the number of year-round or regular employees hired by farms. From 1974 to 2002, the number of direct-hire workers reportedly employed for 150 days or more on California’s farms increased by 48%, from 136,216 to 201,852 according to the United States Census of Agriculture. The result is that there is no longer a “peak season,” and there is a great deal more work during nearly all of the year, even during what some had thought of as “off-season.”
Funding for the this policy paper was provided by the John Muir Institute of the Environment, a collaboration of UC Davis experts discovering solutions to complex environmental challenges.
Additional Information:
- Environmental Impact of Housing Conditions among California Farmworkers (PDF)
- John Muir Institute of the Environment
- California Institute for Rural Studies
Media Contacts:
- Don Villarejo, Ph.D., Director, California Institute for Rural Studies, UC Davis Medical Center and UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center, Phone: 530-756-6545, donfarm@comcast.net
- Marc Schenker, MD, MPH, professor and chair, public health sciences, UC Davis School of Medicine, Phone: 530-752-5676, mbschenker@ucdavis.edu
- Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
Photographs from the farm labor camps in the Coachella Valley are available, by request, for members of the media through David Bacon, Photographs and Stories, http://dbacon.igc.org. See http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/imgr00d.html for examples of related photography.