BROOKFIELD ― Sprague Ranch sits in this narrow valley in Brookfield. Mountains rise sharply all around. Barns, houses and the milking parlor are sprinkled along both sides of Route 14.

Chelsea Sprague, who runs the 650-cow dairy farm with her husband, Keith, pulled up to a mid-19th century house across the highway from two large barns and the milking parlor, and stepped out of her four-wheel-drive truck.

This is one of two houses the Spragues own to provide accommodations for their nine Mexican workers. Soon the house will undergo a renovation using a loan of about $26,000 from the Champlain Housing Trust's Vermont Farmworker Housing Repair Loan Program.

What is the Vermont Farmwork Housing Repair Loan Program

The Vermont Farmworker Housing Repair Loan Program makes it possible for dairy farmers to provide good housing for their migrant workers without taking the risk of sinking a lot of their own money into renovations, according to Sprague.

The program, launched last year, offers loans to farmers who want to improve the housing they provide workers. The loans are forgiven after 10 years, as long as the improved housing is continuously maintained and used for farmworkers.

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There are no payments due on the 0% interest loans during that 10-year period. Loans are capped at a maximum of $30,000 for each project.

To decide who gets the money, Julie Curtin, director of homeownership at Champlain Housing Trust, said in an email applicants are scored on several factors, including the urgency of the repairs and the risk posed to the health of the residents by the current housing conditions, the number of workers housed, the financial feasibility of the project and the applicant's "ability and readiness to complete the work."

Many farmers seeking money from the Champlain Housing Trust

When the program opened last year, Champlain Housing Trust received 45 applications seeking a total of $1.8 million but only had $500,000 available. The money was provided by the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, using funds appropriated by the Vermont Legislature, according to a news release. As a result, CHT could only support 15 of the 45 applications.

This year, the program has $774,000 available to lend. Curtin said she has received 31 applications for this second round of funding, totaling $1.06 million in project costs, so again not everyone will be accommodated.

Curtin expects to be able to help an additional 26 farms this year.

What can you do for $30,000

Sprague began talking to representatives of the CHT program last summer and did a walk-through of the house.

"They have specific things they look for to bring things up to date," Sprague said. "It's not a lot of ripping out walls and those kinds of renovations. It's more getting rid of loose paint, making sure the bathrooms are in working order and fixing all the boards on the outside. That's one part of the project."

The house will also be brought up to code, with ground fault circuit interrupter (GFI) outlets where required, as well as fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.

Sprague wants to update both bathrooms and fix the porch, which is in "rough repair." The contractor, who will begin working soon, will scrape the outside of the house and paint it. If there's enough money, he'll replace the rusted metal roof, but the roof isn't leaking, so that may have to wait, Sprague said.

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"That's probably low on the priority list," she said. "It doesn't look great."

Sprague and her husband paid themselves to have the septic system replaced last fall.

"It needed to happen," Sprague said. "I could go on and on, it's an old farmhouse. It hasn't had any work done to it in probably 25 years and we've owned it for about four years. We bought it because it is in such close proximity to our farm. You can just walk across the street to work."

The farm was established in 1864 by the Sprague family.

Will Lambek of Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based nonprofit founded and led by immigrant farmworkers, said the housing repair loan program is a small step toward solving the housing problem on Vermont's dairy farms.

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"It's good that the state is recognizing this is a problem and putting money toward it," Lambek said. "It's a pretty small amount, given the size of the need, and it's rolling out slowly, given the urgency of it. People are living in horrific conditions across the state. We'd like to see more money go out, and go out faster."

Lambek questioned the maximum amount of the loans, set at $30,000.

"We've expressed throughout the process a concern about throwing good money after bad," Lambek said. "On some of these units, $30,000 doesn't get you too far. A lot of the housing has real structural deficiencies and is not habitable. It's enough money to make it slightly less uncomfortable, rather than a holistic solution to create new and better housing."

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Lambek also worries about the power dynamic between farm owners and their migrant farmworkers, given that the loan program does not include any provision for oversight of housing in need of repair on farms not participating in the program.

"There are farms out there that should be applying for this money and workers would desperately want improvement (in their housing), but there's not really a way (to make that happen) if the employer isn't going to apply," Lambek said. "Champlain Housing Trust is not coming in and saying, 'Hey this is something your workers are asking for.'"

The Veracruz connection: Sprague's migrant workers

All nine of Sprague Ranch's Mexican workers are from the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. Five of the workers live in the house to be renovated, and four live in another house the Spragues own a short distance away, which they renovated using their own money.

"We had too many workers in one house, so we bought this house so we could split them up," Sprague said of the house slated for renovation. "There's extra room here, and there's extra room in the other house, so we have room for expansion. That's important."

The arrival of Mexican workers a decade ago at Sprague Ranch changed the business for Sprague and her husband, she said. For the first time, they had reliable workers. Local workers, by contrast, would come and go.

"It was our experience for years and years," Sprague said. "We spent a ton of time trying to train people and we never got out of that cycle of training people. People would leave, or they would come with a laundry list of problems why they couldn't show up, whatever that may be. So that was difficult."

When yet another local worker left, Sprague and her husband decided to hire two Hispanic workers − the term she uses for Sprague Ranch's Mexican workers.

"We decided to try it and see if it could work, and then it became this great thing," Sprague said. "Instead of worrying about who's going to show up for work, you're scheduling, and working on the communication situation."

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Some of Sprague Ranch's Mexican workers speak English well, Sprague said. Others don't speak English at all. Sprague's herdsman and shop foreman, who are locals, became conversant in Spanish. Her feed supplier, Cargill, provides a translator when needed, as part of its contract with Sprague Ranch.

Over the years, the first two Mexican workers were joined by others to total nine of the 15 employees at Sprague Ranch.

"Slowly the American workers would leave and we would replace them with another Hispanic worker," Sprague said.

Working on a dairy farm means long hours in Vermont

Housing and all utilities are provided at no cost to the Mexican workers. They receive reviews and raises every six months, according to Sprague.

"Usually they work a lot of hours − agriculture is exempt from overtime − and it's usually between $40,000 and $60,000 a year that they make," Sprague said.

The Mexicans work two shifts, from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to midnight, milking the cows three times a day. Each worker puts in an average of 70 hours per week.

"Dairy farms are an incredible amount of work," Sprague said. "They make the money. They send it home. They build houses. They buy businesses."

Are migrant workers in Vermont paid enough?

A worker paid $40,000 annually, for a 70-hour week, is making about $11 per hour, or $2 per hour below Vermont's minimum wage.

"There is a labor shortage, that's true," Lambek said. "But if somebody says they can't find somebody to do this job, and they're paid $2 below minimum wage working 10-hour shifts, there's a reason for it. Let's be honest, who's going to work in those conditions?"

One of the first Mexican workers Sprague hired used his earnings to buy a lemon and lime grove in Veracruz and returned home after five years. Sprague and her husband visited him in Mexico a few years ago.

"It's an amazing experience," Sprague said. "It's not like a touristy thing. You stay with them in their villages."

"We have a good relationship, I feel, with our workers, a relationship of mutual respect," she said. "We work hard to make sure they have the things they need."

Lambek acknowledged that "a dollar goes a lot farther in Mexico," and that in some cases farmworkers here can build a house back home and save up a nest egg from their earnings.

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"That's why people come, hoping they're able to do that," Lambek said.

But, he said, a good relationship and mutual respect don't replace the need for "robust enforcement of labor rights," if there are retaliatory firings and abuse, with workers being thrown off a farm in the middle of the night and told to get out.

"This is not a comment on Chelsea or Sprague Farm, but these are things we see," Lambek said.

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT. 

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: VT starts loans for farmers to improve workers' homes: What to know