Farmworker Families Struggle for Decent Housing

Farm worker families struggle for decent housing Farmers, chefs and workers share a locally grown meal to support the cause By Chloe Vieira 07/12/2012 Ventura County Reporter In one year, a farm worker who harvests and packs produce makes less than $10,000, according to the National Agricultural Workers Survey by the United States Department of Labor. That’s not enough money to rent an apartment in this county. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “A renter household needs an annual income of $37,960 in order for a two-bedroom rental unit … to be affordable.”

That equation just doesn’t work. It didn’t work for 21-year-old Mayra Amezcua, who lived in one room with her parents, two sisters and one brother in an apartment in Fillmore. They shared the apartment with two other families. Mayra’s father picks lemons and oranges for various ranches. Her mother is a crossing guard who also does ironing and cleans houses. Mayra and her siblings had trouble doing their schoolwork in the crowded Fillmore apartment. Sometimes one family member would want to sleep, and the others would have to go outside to find light to study by.

“It was very chaotic and stressful,” she said. Her parents tried to move the family to a bigger place.

“We were one of the families in line waiting. It took about seven years of attending meetings and asking, practically begging for low-income housing,” she said.

In 2009, Mayra’s family moved into the Central Station Farmworker Family Apartments on Main Street in Fillmore. Central Station is a community of 21 rental homes provided by the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation (CEDC), which builds affordable housing for low-income families.

“I felt like I was in a dream and I was scared of waking up one day and being back in that one room,” said Susie Amezcua, Mayra’s 19-year-old sister. The family’s new apartment had a living room and a kitchen. Both sisters currently attend Calfornia State University, Northridge. Mayra is a liberal studies major and Susie is double majoring in Chicano studies and sociology. Her parents have inspired Susie to continue with her schooling. They taught her that if she has an education, she will be treated better in life.

“Ideally I want to be one of those people who kept pushing for those [housing] projects to be approved,” said Susie.

House Farm Workers! is an advocacy group in California working to rid people of the mentality that having low-income housing in your community devalues your home.

“Which is totally false,” said Gail Weller Brown, committee chair person for House Farm Workers! “These people are screened. They have to document that they are farm workers, that they meet the minimum salary requirements. It’s quite extensive; they have a lot of work to do to prove that they are worthy of being in those homes.”

Brown said the area around the Meta Street Farm Worker Family Apartments, another CEDC project, this one in Oxnard actually became safer, cleaner and better-lit as a result of the low-income housing there.

“They’re wonderful people who work very hard, and all they want is to have some privacy for their children to study and a safe place for them to grow up,” she said.