In a packed Oxnard College auditorium, a short distance from fields bursting with bell peppers and artichokes, housing advocate Jessica Arciniega urged students last week to think about those who supply the muscle for Ventura County's $1-billion farm industry.
She told them that there are as many as 30,000 farmworkers in the county, many of whom live in cars, tool sheds and garages because of a lack of affordable housing. And while the county's pricey housing market is tough on workers in all sectors, Arciniega said, it's especially hard on farmworkers, some of whom earn as little as $9,000 a year plucking lemons and picking strawberries.
"If we want to have sustainable agriculture in Ventura County, we have to address the issue of housing for farmworkers," said Arciniega, who as coordinator for the House Farm Workers campaign roams the county planting the seeds for advocacy.
"We want to make sure there is a voice for farmworkers and their needs," she said. "We have to start thinking about where our farmworkers are living and how they are living."
By all accounts, that awareness is translating into action. Farmworker housing groups have formed in half of Ventura County's 10 cities, with business leaders, growers, elected officials and others joining an unprecedented push to eliminate the crowded and often dangerous conditions the laborers endure.
Grass-roots efforts to house farmworkers are underway in Ventura, Santa Paula, Oxnard and Camarillo. And this week a farmworker housing group in Fillmore will hold its first meeting, adding another voice to a rising chorus of advocacy on behalf of low-paid laborers.
Corporate travel consultant Nancie Paquin will head the Fillmore group. She decided to get involved earlier this year after watching a short film produced by the Ag Futures Alliance Farm Worker Housing Task Force, which last year launched the House Farm Workers campaign.
The effort involves identifying parcels on which housing can be built, helping shape government policies to make it easier to build farmworker dwellings and advocating on behalf of projects as they come forward.
"I saw the conditions that many of these families were living in, and I just said I need to do something about it," Paquin said. "We're not talking about strangers. We're talking about families with children who go to school with our children."
