Thread: FL: Co. provides migrants w/nice housing .

Company thanks workers with safe, affordable housing
Saturday, January 17, 2009
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Workers at East Coast Growers & Packers, like the ones seen above, have the opportunity to live in affordable housing provided by the company.
Workers at East Coast Growers & Packers, like the ones seen above, have the opportunity to live in affordable housing provided by the company.

MULBERRY (Bay News 9) -- A Bay area company is thanking its migrant workers, who do hard work for low pay, with safe, affordable places to live.

Batista and Evelyn Madonia, who own East Coast Growers & Packers in Mulberry, recently purchased the campus of what used to be Spurgeon Baptist Bible College. They transformed the campus from a learning environment for students to a community for the company's workers and their families.

"They work hard," Batista Madonia said. "They need safe housing."

Right now, about 60 people live on the property, including Eusebio Mendez, who works on the line sorting tomatoes. He used to spend all of the money he earned to pay $700 each month to rent a beat-up trailer.
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"It is hard finding housing, especially when it is so expensive right now," he said.

Now Mendez and some of his fellow workers now pay $30 a week to live on the converted college campus.

Madonia says that, eventually, as many as 250 of his workers will live in the old dormitories and trailers.

The classrooms have been converted as well. Now, they house an education center, a medical facility, food pantry and day care.

"They can take them to the day care and then they can go to work and make more money," said Maria Gonzalez, who also works for the company.

At the center of the camp is a church, where hundreds of people have showed up for worship.

The Madonias said the investment of time and money ultimately makes good business sense for them, because they hope the living and working environment will bring workers back each season.

"When they're happy, they're more productive," Evelyn Madonia said. "We feel we just owe it to them for what they do for us."

The couple, who also owns and operates the Red Rose Inn and Dining Room, said their new venture is all about supporting the "backbone" of the farming industry.

Good: giving people a place to live. Bad: not paying them enough, and where the crap did these company owners get the money to buy and remodel a campus? Of the backs of illegals who will work for pennies, maybe?