Summit addresses need for affordable farmworkers housing
The lack of affordable housing for Ventura County’s thousands of farmworkers was the focus of a May 8 conference aimed at developers.
“We’re trying to bring awareness to local developers to keep their minds open to serving farmworkers in their projects,” Ken Trigueiro, who sits on the board of House Farm Workers, which put on the event in Santa Paula, told the Business Times.
“So, this feels like a way to get everyone to understand the best practices and the lessons learned so they can feel more confident to propose more farmworker-related affordable housing,” said Trigueiro, who is also CEO and president of San Luis Obispo-based People’s Self-Help Housing, a developer of low-income residences.
The annual Developer Roundtable was held at the People’s Place, a new, affordable housing development that serves farmworkers and others.
Panels included discussions of building on Ag land and challenges in developing affordable housing in Ventura County.
According to an ongoing Ventura County farmworker housing study and action plan discussed at the event, there are about 25,000 to 36,500 such workers in the county.
A paucity of affordable housing is a major issue for them.
“Key takeaways from the stakeholder interviews conducted from December 2022 to January 2023 are that farmworker representatives, advocates, and agricultural industry representatives all acknowledge the acute challenge of deteriorating housing availability and affordability for farmworkers in Ventura County,” the executive summary of parts two and three of the study says.
Data indicates that a sizable portion of the farmworker population is living in overcrowded to severely overcrowded conditions, according to the summary.
Farmworkers’ low wages and unique vulnerabilities exacerbate the housing crisis, impacting their ability to provide for their basic needs, the synopsis says.
“As a result of these challenges, employers face difficulties recruiting a sufficient workforce, which in turn can affect industry output and lead to potential changes in crops grown,” the summary notes.
According to the summary, barriers to developing more farmworker housing include:
• Small growers facing challenges due to not having sufficient resources or scale to support the provision of housing.
• Capital-intensive nature and management challenges for growers providing housing.
• Limited capital and/or operating funding for farmworker housing.
• Restrictions on where multifamily housing can be built and a lack of infrastructure in rural areas.
The ultimate goal of the ongoing study is to implement an action plan to encourage the development and improvement of farmworker housing throughout the county.
The study’s final phase is projected to be completed in Fall 2025.
Linda Braunschweiger, CEO of Housing Trust Fund Ventura County and Housing Land Trust Ventura County, moderated the Ag land panel.
She told the Business Times that funding for affordable housing projects is uncertain given the cuts being implemented by the Trump Administration.
“That’s the big question,” she said. “And it’s very scary for us.”
“Where do all these projects in the pipeline find the funding?” Braunschweiger said.
It looks like her nonprofits are going to be able to help, she said.
“We’re going to be announcing some pretty good-sized funding here in the next couple of months,” Braunschweiger said.
It’s due to “local entities recognizing, with the instability at the federal level and Wall Street, to invest locally where it’s stable,” she said.
Panelist Dan Parziale, executive director of Mesa Farms, an Ojai nonprofit which offers affordable housing for young adults facing homelessness, ended his remarks on an inspirational note.
“One of the really beautiful things about this work is that all of these big, beautiful, audacious projects started as a thought,” he said.
“And then you get people who believe in it and they throw a ton of energy and resources at it and then it comes to be,” Parziale said.
email: [email protected]
