Restrictions Keep Migrant Housing Funds in Limbo

Half a million dollars sits in a bank account in Sacramento, just waiting to be used on desperately needed housing for migrant farm workers in San Diego County.

And it will continue to sit, as long as a formidable wall of regulations separates the money from the people who need it.

The money, as approved in the state budget two months ago, comes with restrictions that critics say are utterly impractical.

“That program has so many strings attached to it that it’s virtually useless for San Diego County,” said Oceanside Housing Director Richard Goodman.

Assemblyman Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad), the driving force behind the budget item, was thrilled last July when Gov. George Deukmejian approved the spending blueprint with the $500,000 allotment intact. Frazee remarked at the time that it was “nice to win one” after seeing a similar proposal jettisoned last year.

However, early applause for the success of the budget appropriation has given way to grumbling by agencies eager to provide housing, but who have discovered their plans do not qualify under the state’s restrictions on use of the money.

Among the restrictions that make the money difficult to obtain are provisions that the funds be used only for permanent structures, which must be built on land that is either owned or leased for a minimum of 20 years by the city or agency proposing to construct the housing. Also, the housing is for families only and is not to be used year-round.

Frazee’s staff is back at the drawing board, reviving an Assembly bill to make the money more accessible. Frazee reportedly is trying to push the bill through the Legislature in the two weeks remaining before the session ends Sept. 15.

Program Doesn’t Qualify

Oceanside, host to an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 migrant laborers each year, has a plan for farm worker housing but is ineligible to use the state money, which will be disbursed by the state Office of Migrant Services via the Farmworker Housing Grant Program. The project would involve leasing trailers directly to the farmers to provide shelter for the year-round work force.

“We have been talking with the growers, and we know they are ready, willing and able to join us in doing this,” Goodman said. “The money has been appropriated, and the need is outrageous. But the state has got so many strings on that money we can’t use it.”

After a meeting in Sacramento, Goodman said state officials appeared unaware that the agricultural areas of San Diego County operate under completely different circumstances than the rural farms in California’s Central Valley.

“They keep saying, ‘Get some land,’ but property here is too valuable and too scarce for us to just go out and buy some,” Goodman said.

“Also, in a place like Oceanside, the farmland is around where all the well-heeled people live,” he said. “Getting a high-density apartment complex for migrant workers approved would be a political nightmare.”

The amended bill would make the money usable for temporary housing for single farm workers on a year-round basis and would also seek to set aside $100,000 for use on a project similar to the one proposed by Oceanside. Though the $100,000 would technically be available to any agency with a plan to house migrant workers, “for all practical purposes, Oceanside is the only game in town unless someone else really moves fast,” Frazee’s chief of staff, Richard Ledford, said.

Portables for Oceanside

Oceanside plans to purchase portable trailers, then lease them to the growers at a nominal rate, probably $1 a year, Goodman said. The growers would be responsible for installing water and power lines to the trailers and maintaining the units, which would house up to seven people each. The growers would have to invest $5,000 to $10,000 for each trailer, Goodman said.

Frazee’s bill, AB-617, was already in the works while the budget was being hammered out.

“We felt 617 was on track,” Ledford said. “But our negotiations with the administration came out a little more positive than we thought they would. Rather than wait for Jan. 1 for the new legislation to take effect, Frazee made a decision to see if we could get it in the budget.

“I never imagined we would have the problems with it that we did. In retrospect, I wish we had been a little more specific about how the money could be spent.”

Now, the legislation has been resurrected as a “trailer” bill, intended to clean up the details left out by the $500,000 budget appropriation.

As of last week, AB-617 had successfully cleared the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and was being considered on the floor of the state Senate, carried by Sen. William Craven, (R-Oceanside), according to Ledford.

The current program does allow for the housing to be built on land in which the city has a 20-year “controlling interest,” but Goodman said even that provision would not be sufficient. “There’s no grower that’s going to commit his property for that long in the future,” he said, in light of the rapid pace at which farmland is being sold to developers in the North County.

“Their rules and regulations just don’t mesh with reality in Southern California, especially San Diego County,” Goodman said.

Program Called ‘Flexible’

Bill Vangundi, state deputy director of housing, defended the state’s stance, saying the Farmworker Housing Grant Program is “a very flexible program.”

“Right now the funds are there,” he said. “They are for use for farm-worker family housing in San Diego, and that’s what it will be used for.” But the local officials who are desirous of using that money have to “reformat their thinking,” Vangundi said.

“What they wanted to focus on as a solution wasn’t going to work,” he said, referring to Oceanside’s trailer plan. The state would balk at allowing the trailers to be put on the farmers’ property, he said. “We’re the lender of the taxpayers’ money . . . and the taxpayers are not going to be happy about putting money on a private landowner’s land, if he can turn that site over to some other use next year.”

“They will need to have that land or long-term control of that land,” Vangundi said. “That is definitely a major string, but it’s one that they are going to have to come to grips with.”

Vangundi suggested that Oceanside approach Camp Pendleton about obtaining a long-term lease for farm-worker housing on the Marine base. The problem of farmland being sold to developers was also not insurmountable, he said. “If some of that agricultural land converts to residential down the road, it doesn’t preclude them from still having farm-worker housing there.”

Land Purchases OK

Vangundi pointed out that the money may also be used for things besides construction, such as site acquisition, feasibility studies and environmental reviews, or as a down payment for federal grant programs that require matching funds.

“Because of the way it was written by the legislative staffers, the thing kind of got a little bit garbled,” he said.

Additional misunderstandings may have occurred because the state defines “migrant workers” as laborers who migrate from crop to crop, not as migrants from Mexico or other countries, he said.

Despite the apparent difficulties, Vangundi said, “We’re not giving up. There’s going to be a solution.”

Local officials, unconvinced that the state is on their side, are now relying on Frazee’s efforts to help them obtain the money.

Though Oceanside appears to be the front-runner for state funding, other social service agencies in North County are moving ahead with plans to build housing for farm workers with or without the state money.

Valley Center Site Possible

Amy Rowland, director of the North County Housing Foundation, said her nonprofit organization has been working on plans to establish farm-worker housing in Valley Center or in Fallbrook.

The Valley Center plan, however, has stalled because of the difficulty of finding an appropriate site, she said. Most of Valley Center is under a county-mandated building moratorium because the high ground-water level has led to problems with the septic systems.

“We haven’t been able to find a site yet, but no matter where we build, it’s going to be used,” she said. “There’s enough need out there to do hundreds of projects.”

Rowland said she is considering the state money as one possible source for financing the Valley Center project but has not been encouraged by reports of the inaccessibility of the money. “It looks like the way that funding is allocated currently it would be tough to use in San Diego in any way that would make sense,” she said. “I think whoever uses the money, it’s going to have to be coupled with other resources.”

Encinitas Project Planned

The North County Chaplaincy is also moving ahead on a housing project in the Encinitas area and probably will apply for a share of the state money, spokeswoman Millie Gordon said. “We’ve got everything taken care of,” Gordon said. “We’re just now going insane trying to find funding.”

The Chaplaincy project will utilize prefabricated units that will house eight people each, and arrangements already have been made to lease land and provide utilities and social services, Gordon said. The housing will be open to farm workers, immigrants and the general homeless population, she said.

“All we need is money,” Gordon said. “With $250,000, we could set up 20 families, up to 100 individuals, in their own homes within a month.”

Gabriel Rodriguez, county housing department chief, said the county supports the nonprofit agencies in their quest for the state funds. The county itself does not have any proposals to build farm-worker housing, he said.