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  1. #1
    Senior Member Skip's Avatar
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    CARLSBAD: FARMWORKER SHELTER ADVOCATES FINDING FINANCING




    CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA:
    Farmworker shelter advocates finding financing


    By BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer
    Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:23 PM PDT


    CARLSBAD, CA---- A new sense of hope is rising among advocates of a farmworker housing project after many years of unsuccessful attempts to bring their plans to reality.

    "I think we've made significant progress," said Tom Maddox, a member of the Caring Residents of Carlsbad group, as he discussed recent developments Tuesday night.

    Maddox gave his upbeat assessment during a break in a Carlsbad City Council meeting, where city officials discussed giving $205,000 to a proposal to renovate and expand La Posada de Guadalupe homeless shelter. Part of that project calls for adding farmworker housing to the shelter, which is on a 1-acre site along Impala Drive in the city's business park region.

    The grant is not the only good news of late, Maddox said. Project organizers received word last month that they will get $150,000 from a private family foundation, he said. Combine that with the $2 million the city has previously agreed to give, and things are finally starting to look up, he said.

    Rough construction cost estimates for the project put the total expense at $3.5 million, he said.

    For years, Maddox and other farmworker housing advocates have been trying to improve the living conditions for the people who toil in the city's flower and strawberry fields. Some of these workers sleep in makeshift, tarp-covered sleeping platforms in canyons near the fields.

    The migrant farmworker shelter proposal has faced opposition from people who want the U.S. government to better enforce its immigration laws. Some of them have argued that the farmworkers are mostly illegal immigrants who shouldn't have jobs in North County. In the past, they have said the city should not give grant money to the project. None of the opponents spoke at Tuesday's meeting.

    In 2004, farmworker housing advocates thought they were close to having a shelter� ---- they had signed a purchase agreement for a warehouse near Palomar Airport Road. However, neighboring business owners fought those plans and the deal was later dropped. The next proposal was to rent motel rooms, but that idea didn't appear to be cost-effective.

    In 2006, housing advocates linked up with the La Posada shelter, which is run by the nonprofit organization Catholic Charities. The latest plans call for replacing La Posada's aging portable buildings with one structure to house farmworkers and La Posada's general homeless population. One wing of the building could be devoted to one group and one wing to the other, Maddox said.

    The council heard Tuesday from a series of shelter supporters as it reviewed plans to distribute this year's allotment of federal money for its Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership programs. A decision on the distribution is expected later this year.

    The city had 23 applicants for the grant money, and recommendations call for funding 15 of them. Many of the successful applicants thanked the council Tuesday, while the unsuccessful groups asked the city to reconsider.

    Stan Miller, executive director of the North County Community Services program, thanked the city for its plans to give his organization $5,000, and also put in a plug for La Posada.

    "They do an amazing job with very little, and I think it would do all our hearts good to see them get their building," he said.

    Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.


    NORTH COUNTY TIMES

  2. #2
    Senior Member miguelina's Avatar
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    Why is the town paying for this? Isn't it the farmers responsibility to provide housing for migrants?

    Is Carlsbad that well off that they can waste taxpayer money on something like this?
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
    "

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    Senior Member vmonkey56's Avatar
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    Why isn't these companies using E-Verify? Even the Employment Office E-Verifies Migrate Farmers.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    Senior Member uniteasone's Avatar
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    While reading that article I was thinking the same thing miguelina has put into words. Why are taxes and donations going to something,you would think the farmers would be responsible for? It is those people that are doing the work for the farmer (at lower wages) so they should be housed by the farmers. Looks like a bit of WALL STREET out there on the plantations!......GREED!!!!!!!!!!
    "When you have knowledge,you have a responsibility to do better"_ Paula Johnson

    "I did then what I knew to do. When I knew better,I did better"_ Maya Angelou

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    MW
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    miguelina wrote:

    Why is the town paying for this? Isn't it the farmers responsibility to provide housing for migrants?
    I could be wrong about this, but it seems like this was one of the areas that the Bush adminstration changed when they set out to revise the H1A visa program. At least I know it was talked about before Bush left office. You may want to look in to it because the farmers may no longer be required to house their H1A migrant farm workers. As for illegals, we all know the farmer has no responsibility to them. Any free services provided to illegals rest solely on the taxpayer.

    Cheap labor (illegal alien labor) is only cheap for the employer.

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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    Senior Member SicNTiredInSoCal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by miguelina
    Is Carlsbad that well off that they can waste taxpayer money on something like this?
    In a word - YES! Carlsbad is one of the few places in San Diego county that has not stopped building. There is a brand new housing dev of Monster mansions being built right now from the ground up. I was just commenting to a friend of mine how un affected this town seems to be from the bad economy. Carlsbad is full of beach bums, surfers rich retirees, yuppies and libs.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    Senior Member Skip's Avatar
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    I could use some help here.

    Please take a moment and make some comments http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/03 ... 1ac7c1.txt to this article in the NCT.

    Read some of the comments and you will see what I mean.

    R/ Skip

    banned again ................

  8. #8
    Senior Member Skip's Avatar
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    By EDWARD SIFUENTES / North County Times

    DATE: 19 SEPTEMBER 2002


    To see them, you have to look closely. But they are there. Nestled just out of view from wealthy North County communities is a hidden, silent agricultural work force living in Third World squalor.

    They live in camps behind the nurseries, in creek beds near the flower fields, clinging to the hill sides next to strawberry fields.

    No one can really be sure how many homeless farmworkers there are because of the workers' tenuous living conditions and their geographical, linguistic and cultural isolation.

    The county's Regional Taskforce on the Homeless estimates there are at least 7,000 day laborers and farmworkers in the county, many of them living in the 100-150 migrant camps throughout North County. The San Diego County Farm Bureau estimates there are about 35,000 agricultural jobs in the county.

    Camps much like the one near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon just north of Carlsbad's Car Country Mall, where Juan Hernandez lives.

    Far from home

    For the 18-year-old Hernandez, dusk is the end of a long day picking strawberries. In his camp, there is no running water or electricity, but it is home to more than a dozen men, some as young as 15.

    Hernandez says he doesn't mind the hard work or the demanding bosses. Some of the men complain there is not enough work. One of the men said he took on a second job at a plush restaurant washing dishes to supplement his income and send money home.

    In the evening, Hernandez's dinner is a warm tortilla and a hot cup of coffee. Most of the other men have gone to the lunch truck, which serves overpriced, plastic-wrapped food.

    "I'm here to earn money to send home," he said, while sitting on an old, throwaway chair eating his dinner. The scene is a sharp contrast from the sound of laughter and a motorboat on the lagoon and the expensive homes on the north shore.

    Feeling out of place, most of the men speak in short, polite sentences. Some are shy, but many are Indigenous people for whom Spanish is a second language. Just about everyone in the camp is from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, whose indigenous populations are among the most marginalized in Mexican society.

    The smile full of white teeth and the lowered gaze -- traits among many in the camps -- make it difficult to discern whether the answers Hernandez gives are what he believes to be true or what he would like the interviewer to believe is true.

    As an example, it is surprising how many 18-year-olds there are in the camps. Some look much younger than that and if questioned a little closer some will admit they are 16, maybe 15.

    At three months, Hernandez is one of the newer arrivals to the camp. His cousin sitting across from him at the dinner table has been here eight months.

    Life in the shadows

    Living in the camps is not easy for the workers. They are vulnerable to thieves and bigots. The city hires a security firm to patrol the area, but some of the men fear its employees, too.

    In November, the city of Carlsbad ordered the residents of the camp evicted and their shacks razed because of health concerns. But the camps have been rebuilt. Again. And again.

    Now there are three small rooms leaning on each other.

    The building is as crude as it is ingenious. Plywood panels are nailed to a wood frame and double-covered with plastic tarps to make the rooms rainproof. Dirt is kicked up against the bottom side for wind protection and the roof is tied by rope to nearby trees for stability.

    Hernandez's room is the last facing west, he said. It's a two-man, 8-by-10-foot room. A larger, similarly designed shack is in front of his and another in back of that. There is another to the east up the hillside and many more west along the lagoon up to Interstate 5.

    Walking west toward the freeway is a well-worn labyrinth leading to the other shacks. There is music, laughter and conversation hidden behind the tall grass and low canopy of old trees.

    There are clotheslines with work shirts and pants drying. There is bath water mixed with runoff water from the strawberry fields above.

    In another encampment, there is the smell of alcohol and the stench of working men living in close quarters. The talk among them is still of the incident last Sunday in which several of the men allegedly were rounded up by "security guards."

    The men say there is a boy in the next camp who was among those detained. One of the younger men in the group is asked to lead a group to the boy.

    For about a hundred yards, the only sure thing among the fallen branches, soaked grass and loose dirt is the work boots of the young man.

    At the encampment there are two more shacks. Three young men are sitting with their backs against one of the shacks. One is gently strumming a little guitar.

    Inside the opposite shack is a boy 15 years old. The boy, Atilano, said he was "walking up near the strawberry fields when the security" men approached him and asked to see his identification. He said they told him they didn't believe the "green card" was real; it probably wasn't.

    The men held him for about a half-hour before letting him go. Most of the talking was done by his older brother, the one strumming the guitar.

    When asked for a description of the vehicle the security men were driving, an older man from a nearby camp joined in the conversation.

    "We don't pay attention to what color or what number license plates," the older man said. Having borrowed $1,100 to pay a coyote, or smuggler, to bring him into the country, he said he couldn't afford to lose his job. None of them could.

    Hard work, little money

    Each day, the men rise early in the morning to begin work promptly at 6:30 picking strawberries. Several complained there are no breaks until lunch, which comes at about noon.

    They crouch down to pick the plump, ripe strawberries row by row. When they finish at one end of the nearly 2-mile-long field, the workers walk to the other end and begin picking again. They don't get paid for the time it takes to walk from one end to the other, the men said.

    It's a minimum-wage job, $6.75 an hour, but that's about twice the minimum wage for a full day of work in Oaxaca. Some of the men talk about "el contrato," the contract the strawberry company has with the workers.

    "El Contrato," the men said, means they get paid by the boxful, or $1.75 per box of good strawberries. The older, slower man said he can fill up to 15 boxes on a good day, which means he earns about $26 a day.

    "This week, I'll probably make less than $200," he said. "I've been here a month and a half, and I haven't been able to send much money home."

    The man said he borrowed $10,000 pesos, or about $1,100, with 15 percent interest to come to the United States.

    "So you can understand why I can't afford to lose my job," he said. "I'll just keep sinking in debt.

    "When you reach out for that food (from the lunch truck) you really think about it. Sometimes you have just one meal a day."

    Camp life

    Few of the men who are in the country illegally wander far from the camps. To break away from the boredom, solitude and monotony of camp life, some will walk to nearby stores. Others will walk around the fields and some will drink alcohol.

    The solitude also makes the workers good customers for prostitution rings that bring women from Mexico, according to North County health and law enforcement authorities. Parties are organized for the men bringing women and beer to sell to them.

    Sexually transmitted diseases are also a problem, said Eduardo Gomez, a health worker for the Vista Community Clinic. He visits the camps each Tuesday looking for sick workers.

    Gomez said the clinic has been able to reach the men by teaching them safe sex practices and distributing condoms to help prevent the spread of diseases.

    Hernandez said the worst time for boredom is the weekends when there is no work. Local farmworker advocates from the Ecumenical Migrant Outreach Project try to help by bringing the men food and organizing parties with traditional dances, music and other entertainment for them.

    The Ecumenical group also takes some of the men on Sundays to Fallbrook to teach them how to build "Superadobe" homes out of mud, barbed wire and plastic sandbags.

    Like most ordinary teen-agers, Hernandez says he prefers to sleep on his days off. When asked when he will return to his family in Oaxaca, he said maybe in a year.

    And what he will do later this year when there is no more work in the strawberry fields?

    He simply shrugs his shoulders.

    "I don't know, we'll see," he said.

    Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

    LEE ENTERPRISES

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