Across California, farmworkers face overcrowded housing, substandard living conditions and even homelessness as they work hard to power the nation's best agricultural state. But recent laws could help.
Today, Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws to enhance housing options for farmworkers, who face major housing problems across the state.
AB 3035, sponsored by local Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin, would make it easier for developers to construct housing for farmworkers in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.
“Everyone in our community deserves a safe, dry and warm home in which to live and raise their family. All too often, those who grow our food live in shipping containers, sheds, cars or other substandard housing,” Santa Clara County Councilwoman Sylvia Arenas, who helped draft the bill, said in an email. “Today's action is a critical step in a much larger work plan to address decades of neglect while this problem spiraled out of control.”
The bill comes after a 2018 report showed the county needed 2,100 additional housing units for migrant and year-round farmworkers. The bill passed the Assembly and Senate with out a single no vote.
The recent law would simplify permitting processes and permit developers to accumulate to 150 farmworker housing units inside 15 miles of pasture or farmland. Previously, the Farmworker Housing Act of 2019 loosened zoning regulations and allowed developers to accumulate to 36 housing units on farmland. However, this had virtually no impact on farmworker housing units within the region since it was too expensive to run sewer and water from the closest community to distant, rural areas.
By allowing projects as much as 15 miles from farmland, the bill would allow developments to maneuver closer to nearby communities so that they can more easily access existing water and sewer lines, bypassing the bureaucratic morass that hampers potential rural projects. The cap, raised from 36 to 150 housing units, is meant to make construction less expensive.
“This is a huge win for farmworkers who lack access to adequate safe and affordable housing in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, which still need to build hundreds of housing units to meet their farmworker needs,” Pellerin said in a press release. “With the approval of AB 3035, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties can build needed multifamily housing with access to clean and safe drinking water and utility infrastructure for our important farmworker community.”
However, he noted that the law doesn’t provide funding for developers and argued that more investment is required to handle the shortage of housing for farmworkers.
The governor also signed two other bills that address farmworker rights and housing. AB 2240 by Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula would make it easier for migrant staff to seek out and keep housing in migrant employee housing operated by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. SB 1105 by State Senator Steve Padilla would extend sick leave to permit outdoor farmworkers to take sick days to avoid certain weather emergencies.
“Farmworkers are the backbone of California's nation-leading agriculture industry and play a critical role in ensuring the stability of the state, nation and world's food supply… All families have a right to access safe and stable housing,” Newsom said in a press release after signing the bills. Still, he acknowledged that the bills are a primary step toward housing security for farmworkers. “Passing programs is not a solution to the problem… Now the next phase begins, the real work.”
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