Napa's Migrant Workers Await Harvest of Housing

By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post
Sunday, May 26, 2002; Page A03

ST. HELENA, Calif.--They sleep along riverbanks, because shelters are full.

They live under bridges, because rents are so high.

They camp on church doorsteps, because few places welcome them.

Here in the lustrous Napa Valley, migrants who toil in the renowned vineyards have never had much luck finding decent housing. "For the longest time, no one wanted to take responsibility for helping them," said Rosa Segura, who runs a local center for field workers.

That plight is about to change. Shamed by the sight of such hardships in the shadow of tourists toasting at sumptuous wineries, this wealthy region recently rewrote a formerly sacrosanct zoning law to build shelters for as many as 300 migrants.

Napa County voters gave the idea overwhelming support after a prominent local winemaker took the first step by donating five acres of precious valley land. To help pay for the new housing, vineyard owners may soon begin taxing themselves as much as $10 for every acre they own. The first shelter, a dormitory-style building with 60 beds, will even include a new soccer field next door.

Advocates for farm workers say the plan could be a model for the state, even the nation, to address one of the most chronic, severe problems in American agriculture. California, which boasts one of the world's biggest and richest farming regions, has more than a half-million field workers.

"It seems like some growers are finally realizing it is in their best interests to have a stable, well-housed workforce," said Shoshanna Zatz, a director of the California Rural Community Assistance Corp., a nonprofit group that develops housing for the poor. "The housing crisis is as bad as ever, so if this works, I think the agricultural industry will take a close look at it."

Local activists have been denouncing the wine industry for not doing more to help the workers it relies on to hand-pick prized grape harvests, and they have blamed the county for not creating more affordable housing. At one point, they opened a tent encampment for migrants on county land to protest the shortage.

But booming sales of wines cultivated in this rustic region about 60 miles north of San Francisco have only exacerbated the housing problem in recent years. Grape growers needed more workers for new vineyards but were reluctant to use ever more valuable land for even makeshift shelters.

There are twice as many acres in Napa being used for grape growing now than there were two decades ago but only half as many shelter beds for migrants.

"Last year we turned about 400 people away," said Judith Miller, the director of one of the few shelters in the valley. It charges migrant workers $10 a night. "It's a terrible situation. There isn't much else around here that they can afford, and landlords have no motivation to rent to them."

Aside from sleeping outdoors, the only choice that many migrant workers now have is to crowd into small apartments, often with five men or more sharing a room, or to commute to the fields every day from cheaper towns up to 70 miles away. The county runs three shelters with a total of 177 beds, but that falls far short of the demand. By some estimates, 600 more beds could be filled.

Martin Calderon, 35, who has picked grapes for four years, said many workers live in squalor. Most are Mexican men who have left their families behind for the chance to earn money in the fields. Some come just for the weeks of harvest every fall, but many have vineyard jobs that last for months during the year.

"It is very, very hard to find any place to stay," said Calderon, who bunks at a full shelter in the valley town of Calistoga. "There is nothing we have the money for."

The new housing plan, which has been debated for several years, is far from complete. The first shelter will not open until next year; sites for the others are still uncertain. To fulfill the promise of the recent Napa vote, other local winemakers may have to follow the example of longtime vineyard owner Joseph Phelps and sacrifice a small portion of their land to the cause.

But housing advocates say they are confident that the valley has had a change of heart and is determined to improve the living conditions of field workers.

The ballot measure calling for the shelters, which most wineries supported, passed with 71 percent of the vote. The project is likely to be financed by money that vineyards collect by taxing themselves, and by government grants. It will not require a local tax increase. The county will manage the shelters.

"We haven't always had this kind of support," said Peter Dreier, director of the Napa Valley Housing Authority. "There used to be a lot of arguing over whether we even needed more housing -- and the grape growers didn't want to be responsible for the operations of shelters. But there's more consensus now."

Craig Williams, senior vice president at Phelps Vineyards, said the most difficult battle in the campaign for migrant housing has been won: changing the county's zoning regulations, which had banned valley landowners from subdividing parcels of less than 40 acres. The recent vote amended the rule to allow housing -- exclusively for field workers -- on plots as small as two acres.

"That was a huge hurdle," Williams said. "But people are thinking about this issue differently. They aren't saying, 'We don't want this in our back yard.' "

Walt Hampe, a spokesman for Sutter Home vineyards and a leader in the housing campaign, said the community's response is overdue because the burdens of field workers have become so obvious. And the housing in the works, he said, will not be shoddy. The blueprint for the first shelter includes amenities such as a cafeteria and will allow migrants to partake in a favorite pastime, soccer. They also will sleep only two to a room, a significant upgrade for many of them.

"This is going to be the Cadillac of farm worker housing," Hampe said. "And since just about every other wine-producing and agricultural part of the state has the same kind of housing problems, I think the idea will spread."

Growers and housing advocates have their doubts. Some say that what works for a relatively small and quite wealthy agricultural region like Napa cannot be copied in places like California's giant Central Valley, where farmers employ even larger workforces of field laborers and often own 10 times as many acres. A plan to tax that much land to pay for migrant housing could impose heavy costs.

But since the Napa vote in March, leaders in several agricultural counties around the state have expressed interest in studying its new housing plan.

"I don't know how well this would fare politically in other areas," said Roy Gabriel, the legislative director of labor affairs for the California Farm Bureau, which represents the state's growers. "A lot of people want to wait and see how what's going on in Napa works."

Rosa Segura says there is no time to waste here. At her roadside center along Highway 29, which winds through the heart of Napa Valley, field workers come by every week with more tales of housing troubles and plead for her help.

Even on the rare days when she spots a low-priced apartment rental, deals usually fall through because landlords either want long-term leases or demand security deposits along with the first month's rent all up front -- and few field workers have that kind of cash.

"Trying to find them housing is depressing. Where can you send them to?" Segura said. "It's about time that people are recognizing the needs. I've seen two-bedroom apartments housing 20 people, and there was nothing I could do about it. Now, maybe we have a chance."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company