Thread: CA:Substandard housing persists for many farmworkers

Substandard housing persists for many farmworkers
By VANESSA GREGORY, Californian staff writer
e-mail: vgregory@bakersfield.com | Saturday, May 17 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 16 2008 9:54 PM

The tents are gone from a Shafter area orchard where cherry pickers were sleeping, cooking and bathing in the open air earlier this month.


Photo by Henry A. Barrios/ The Californian
Men wait on farm property to see when they will work again and where they will stay in this May 9 photo.

Related Stories:
A snapshot of the farm labor force
Harvest interrupted when workers discovered camping in orchard

But substandard housing remains the only choice for many farmworkers in Kern County, where shelter is often a car, a ramshackle trailer or a spot along a canal bank, experts said. The Shafter camp may have been an especially populous example, but workers wind up living in the fields every year, United Farm Worker organizer Armando Elenes said. Most cases go unnoticed.

“People jam in 20, 30 migrant farmworkers in a house or some apartments,â€

Related:

A snapshot of the farm labor force
By VANESSA GREGORY, Californian staff writer
e-mail: vgregory@bakersfield.com | Saturday, May 17 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 16 2008 9:51 PM

Migrant workers are less common than they once were, but California’s farm labor supply still swells and shrinks with the seasons.

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Statewide the agricultural workforce balloons from 200,000 to 225,000 in the winter to 400,000 or 450,000 in summer’s peak harvesting months, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation trade association. Kern’s massive farm industry produced commodities valued at $3.5 billion in 2006, according to the county’s crop report.

Although Kern’s 9.7 percent April unemployment rate might suggest Kern has plenty of available labor, at least one Kern grower was willing to speculate on why a company might import workers from another state.

“It’s because they’re cherry pickers,â€

Also related; the initial story that started this series:

Harvest interrupted when workers discovered camping in orchard
By VANESSA GREGORY and GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writers
e-mail: vgregory@bakersfield.com and gwenner@bakersfield.com | Friday, May 9 2008 7:41 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 12 2008 7:37 AM

The cherry harvest lurched to a stop Friday morning west of Shafter after the United Farm Workers said men, women and teenagers were camping in the orchards where they work.


Who owns the land

The land where the Romeros long to work is largely owned by an offshoot of Stemilt’s owner along with another Washington state businessman, property records show.

Kyle & Brad LLC owns almost 360 acres at that intersection.

Kyle D. Mathison, Stemilt’s owner and partner — and son of company founder Tom Mathison — is a managing member of Kyle & Brad LLC, signature pages of loan documents and other papers on file at the Kern County Recorder’s office show.

The other managing member is Bradley F. Selland, president of Selland Construction Inc.. The Wenatchee-headquartered construction company operates in the western United States and Hawaii, its Web site says.

The limited liability company lists Wenatchee addresses belonging to Stemilt Growers and Selland Construction in various business filings with the California Secretary of State.

Kyle & Brad LLC bought the acreage, along with a 156-acre parcel to the north at the southwest corner of Jumper and Kimberlina Road, in summer 2003 for $5.5 million, county records show.

A 114-acre patch of the orchard along Lerdo is owned by Britz Ag Finance Co. Inc., a Fresno company whose president is David Britz and chief finance officer is Robert Glassman, signature pages of loan documents show. The Britz property is surrounded by Kyle & Brad acreage.

The cherry trees themselves are owned by a Lodi man, Marvin Nies, lease and licensing agreements show. Kyle & Brad LLC rents the trees from Nies.

Men were busy posting “no trespassingâ€

GIVE ME A BREAK. YOU DONT NEED EXPERIENCE TO PICK A FRIGGIN CHERRY. THEY JUST DONT WANT TO PAY. AND THESE PEOPLE ARE BEING PAID SO LOW THEY CANT EVEN AFFORD HOUSING...FCOL. THATS WHY THEY CANT ATTRACT AMERICAN WORKERS. AND THEY WANT TO KEEP DOING THIS. THEY COULD NOT CARE LESS THAT THEY HAVE HUMAN BEINGS LIVING LIKE ANIMALS IN THE FIELDS. THESE OWNERS SHOULD BE GOING TO JAIL.

No matter what one's viewpoint on Illegal Immigration...this is just sick. To treat people like animals and use them like dirt slaves is just not right. These owners should be arrested and put in jail.

Also these owners don't realize or they just don't care but to make the almight dollars is that the fact that these folks are camping out in the orchards should be a health concern. Since the public will be consuming these products.

If these businesses can screw the illegals they can screw us too...in which they are in many ways.

This is why illegal immigration must be stopped.

Kern County runs two state-funded migrant housing camps which are open from April to October. Occupants must work in agriculture and one family member needs to be a legal U.S. resident, said Stephen Pelz, executive director for the Housing Authority of Kern County.

The legal migrants have this. The illegal aliens should not be here at all.

Originally Posted by miguelina

This is why illegal immigration must be stopped.

Kern County runs two state-funded migrant housing camps which are open from April to October. Occupants must work in agriculture and one family member needs to be a legal U.S. resident, said Stephen Pelz, executive director for the Housing Authority of Kern County.

The legal migrants have this. The illegal aliens should not be here at all.

Kern Co. say one family member needs to be a legal resident. NO ONE should be living in taxpayer funded housing that is not legally here.