Budget Crisis Takes Toll on Community for California Farmworkers
To understand the conditions at the Duroville mobile home park here, a half-hour drive from Palm Springs, Calif., just look at the windows. Dotting the walls are stretches of plywood, cardboard, blankets and even tin foil. Replacing the glass just costs too much for many of the residents to consider.
Duroville is a collection of more than 200 trailers that serve as homes for farmworkers who, at this time of year, work 12-hour days plucking grapes and digging up onions in triple-digit temperatures. There is no sewer: a patchwork of plastic pipes repaired with duct tape winds underground to a swampy pond. Cars kick up a load of dust on the dirt road, which quickly turns to mud when it rains. And this, it should be noted, is an improvement.
By now, residents were supposed to be getting ready to move out, to a new mobile home park that would seem luxurious by comparison. But that plan has suddenly been delayed by bureaucratic regulations that stem from California’s financial struggles.
A federal judge ruled in 2009 that conditions in Duroville were so bad that it had to be shut down. Reasoning that there would be a “humanitarian crisis” without a suitable alternative, the judge also ruled that replacement affordable housing had to be available for Duroville’s families, who now pay about $375 a month in rent and utilities.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/us/california-farmworkers-community-hurt-by-budget-crisis.html?pagewanted=all
