Judge could shut down migrant housing encampment southeast of L.A.

[Robbien]

Source: AP

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - Thousands of migrant workers who live on Indian tribal land southeast of Los Angeles could soon be homeless if a federal judge orders their trailer park shut down today.

The government wants the Desert Mobile Home Park closed because of what it says are health and safety violations. The violations include raw sewage in the streets, an unsafe electrical system and an inadequate drinking water supply. Since the park sits on tribal land, it's exempt from state and local health and safety codes.

. . .

But closing the park, which is in the fertile Coachella Valley about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles, would flood an already overwhelmed affordable housing market in surrounding Riverside County.

The county currently has a 40,000-person waiting list for subsidized or low-income housing, with no new units expected before 2010. The only other affordable apartments are at least 90 minutes away, according to papers filed Friday.

Cheap housing is key for the 4,000 migrant workers who live in the Desert Mobile Home Park during peak harvest season and for the region's economy. The migrants, who make as little as $15,000 annually, pick some of the nearly $1 billion worth of table grapes, dates, chili peppers and other crops that the region yields each year.

Read more: http://www.whotv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7782159&nav=2HAB

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Then see related article:
Ballot measure would phase out rent control laws

In the spring, voters will decide whose interests prevail. More than 100 owners and operators of apartment buildings and mobile home parks spent nearly $2 million to put an initiative on the June 3 ballot to phase out California's rent control laws. About 1.2 million people statewide are covered by such laws.

Los Angeles, which has 626,600 rent-controlled residential units, could be affected more than any other city if the measure passes.

. . .

Proponents tout the measure as one that would limit government's use of eminent domain, preventing the taking of private property for private development. Although that is the first provision of the measure, it goes on to phase out rent control. Opponents have dubbed the measure the "Hidden Agenda Scheme," in part because rent control is not mentioned in the ballot title.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rent28jan28,1,6597221.story

A program which has a 40,000 person waiting list is on the chopping block as a hidden agenda item meanwhile a judge is ruling on closing down what little available housing low incomers have been able to find.

[DBoon]

1. K&R for the rent control article alone

rent control is the only thing allowing many urban renters and trailer park renters to keep their homes during periods of uncontrolled speculative frenzy

This statewide initiative must be defeated.