Farmworker Bill In Trouble Again
OLYMPIA - For the fifth year in a row, legislation to provide temporary housing for farmworkers is in trouble in Olympia.
Every year, lawmakers have fought over how to get migrant workers out of their cars, off the riverbanks and out from under bridges where some sleep during the harvest.
Agriculture is the largest employer in the state. Yet there still are no state housing standards for tens of thousands of temporary laborers who do much of the work essential to the state's $5.8 billion agriculture industry.
A bill passed by the House this week, 2SSB 6168, adopted by a 68-30 vote, intends to change that.
The bill creates new building-code standards specifically for temporary farmworker housing. The standards are lower than those for conventional housing, to allow growers to build affordable residences for temporary help.
That, backers say, is a crucial and humane step forward. But the very people the bill is intended to help are trying to kill the measure.
They succeeded last year in doing just that. Gov. Gary Locke vetoed similar legislation a year ago, saying it didn't have the support of farmworker advocates.
This year's bill is the same, except for $600,000 added in the House version of the budget to help pay for farmworker housing.
That's just not enough, farmworker advocates say.
They swallowed the substandard building code for temporary housing. But they also want the sweetener of more money to help build permanent, low-income housing for farmworkers throughout the state.
"Anything less than that breaks the compromise, and they should go back to the drawing board and start over," said Roger Valdez of the Committee for Farmworker Housing.
At the beginning of the legislative session, Locke proposed spending $2 million every year from a state housing fund for permanent farmworker housing. But his proposal withered under opposition from the Legislature and an economic forecast that predicts a cooling economy.
Locke scaled back his request to a one-time expenditure of $2 million.
At a news conference Wednesday, Locke said he'll now take no less and won't sign a farmworker housing bill without it.
Rep. Jim Clements, R-Selah, Yakima County, an apple grower and supporter of the House bill, said $2 million is probably dreaming. For one thing, the state has yet to spend $2 million in federal funds allocated for farmworker housing in the state's 1996 supplemental budget.
So far, just six single-family homes have been built with the money, according to Al D'Alessandro at the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development. Eventually, about 750 farmworkers will be sheltered with housing built with the money. But it takes time to work through design, permitting, neighborhood opposition, environmental concerns and other problems.
All of the money is already earmarked for projects. But checks won't be cut until the housing is built, D'Alessandro said.
Clements argued that with housing built at that pace, $600,000 is plenty for now.
Farmworker advocates, however, say they can't support a bill without significant cash now to build permanent, low-income housing.
Even as the House passed the housing bill, farmworker advocates held a news conference in Seattle on Wednesday demanding that lawmakers kill it. That infuriated the legislation's supporters.
They still hope to add more money for permanent housing when the bill heads back to the Senate for consideration of amendments made by the House.
Senate supporters of the bill say farmworker advocates are being naive and inflammatory.
If the bill fails again this year, predicted Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle, it may be years before another solution can be found. "Who would want to touch it?" she asked.