The Sacramento Bee looks at the crisis in migrant farmworker housing. Here’s what to know

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THE SACRAMENTO BEE EXPLORES THE MIGRANT HOUSING CRISIS

Via Lindsey Holden...

California farmworkers — especially migrants — face a well-documented struggle to find places to live. Are state-funded units helping, or are they perpetuating a cycle of low-wage work?

This is one of the questions The Sacramento Bee set out to answer with Stuck in Migration, a three-part series investigating California’s migrant farmworker housing centers.

Most people likely are not aware of these 24 centers, which stretch from the Oregon border to Kern County. They provide seasonal housing for farmworkers from April through October or November. Residents must work in agriculture, meet income qualifications and move at least 50 miles away for three months after the centers close.

Housing authorities, nonprofits and growers’ associations own the land and manage the housing. The state Department of Housing and Community Development subsidizes residents’ rent.

The centers are the only housing for which the state provides rental assistance. Most tenants pay less than $400 per month for their two, three and four-bedroom apartments.

There is no doubt the migrant centers provide much-needed housing for farmworkers. But most of those who power California’s nearly $56 billion agriculture industry no longer migrate for work.

About 92% were settled during fiscal years 2019-2020, up from 57% in 1989-1991, according U.S. Department of Labor data.

Migrating is hard on families. It pulls children out of their schools, which makes learning challenging and propels some back into farm work.

The Bee wanted to know whether those who live at the migrant centers are truly moving for seasonal jobs, or if they leave the communities where they work because they cannot find places to live when their affordable housing closes.

Reporters visited seven centers and talked to 150 farmworkers. More than 80% of those The Bee surveyed said they would stay at the migrant centers year-round if they could. Nearly 70% said annual moves hurt their children’s education.

Many families reported the high cost of housing in their communities prompts them to move to cheaper areas, with most going to Mexico. Some also go to other states, including Texas and Arizona. A smaller number continue to migrate from job to job. Others had permanent homes in the less-expensive areas where they travel after the centers close.

HCD does not take a position on keeping the centers open year-round. Officials cautioned that making the housing more flexible could pit migrant farmworkers who want to continue seasonal moves against those who stay permanently.

The Legislature would need to take action to keep the centers open permanently, which would also require funding renovations.

Lawmakers have made attempts to help migrant families, but they haven’t always been successful.

Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, in 2018 authored a bill exempting families with school-age children from the rule requiring them to move at least 50 miles away from the housing centers after they close. But The Bee found few families have used it, in large part because they can’t stay in their communities once they lose their affordable housing.

Caballero said she is in favor of keeping the migrant centers open year-round, although she was not as certain about committing money to revamp the housing. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, acknowledged the migratory lifestyle leads to a “perpetual cycle of poverty and of this legacy farm work.”

But Rivas wanted more information about how (the migrant centers) are used and how the state can support the best use of the sites.”

With a $68 billion budget gap to address next year, it’s clear large-scale migrant center policy changes may be tough for lawmakers to accomplish.

This winter, thousands of units of housing will again sit vacant for months, and farmworkers will scramble for places to live.

Read Stuck in Migration here:

• Migrant farmworkers want to live in California. There’s just no affordable housing for them

• California forces migrant farmworker students to move every year. ‘We need to survive’

• California has a housing crisis. Why are thousands of farmworker apartments closed each year?

CALIFORNIA DOJ OFFICE QUIETLY PREPARES FOR SB 2

This January, SB 2 goes into effect, tightening the state’s requirements for Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) permits and limiting where firearms may be carried.

Now, it appears that the California Department of Justice is getting ready for it.

The CADOJ on Friday sent out an email giving notice that it intends to propose an emergency rules package containing new CCW regulations.

The department intends to file the rules with the state Office of Administrative Law within five working days of the Friday notice.

SB 2 is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, which found that the state’s existing CCW licensing scheme requiring applicants to show “good cause” and “good moral character” in order to concealed carry was unconstitutional.

“Before issuing a concealed carry license, the licensing authority must now determine that the applicant is not a disqualified individual under certain defined and objective criteria,” according to a DOJ document.

That includes being convicted of certain crimes or being the subject of certain restraining orders “all of which indicate, in California’s view, that it is reasonably likely that the applicant has been or is reasonably likely to be a danger to themselves or others,” according to the document.

SB 2 also sets the minimum age for possessing a CCW license at 21.

CALCHAMBER ENDORSES PROP. 1

A majority of California voters appear to support Proposition 1, the March 2024 ballot measure to unlock billions in new spending on the homelessness crisis. Now, so does the California Chamber of Commerce.

CalChamber’s board of directors voted Friday to endorse the measure during its quarterly meeting.

“California employers are on the front lines of our state’s homelessness crisis and many have been challenged with safety issues for both their workers and customers,” said CalChamber President and CEO Jennifer Barrera in a statement.

Barrera said that Prop. 1 is “an effective and ambitious plan” to address the three interrelated crises of homelessness, untreated serious mental illness and drug abuse.

“Importantly, the measure includes accountability metrics that will ensure funds are spent in the most effective ways possible so that services that are foundational for treatment are successful,” she said.

If approved, Prop. 1 would authorize the expenditure of $6.38 billion in spending, and also would restructure the state’s behavioral health funding model.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The irony…”

- California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, responding to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claiming a judge is not ‘medically qualified’ to make a determination that a woman be allowed to get an abortion, via Threads.

Best of The Bee:

• California’s water agency released a final environmental report on the controversial plan to build a tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The highly anticipated document is expected to lead to approval of the water project, via Ari Plachta.

• California lawmakers will return to Sacramento next month to deal with a looming problem — a $68 billion budget gap that may require an emergency declaration to fix, via Lindsey Holden.

• Summer might be over, but the “hot labor” movement that started months ago has yet to cool down. Call it “solidarity season,” if you will, via Maya Miller.