Trailer parks yield a bumper crop
At the Rancho Benitez trailer park, farmworker Macedonio Benite practises counting with granddaughter Ily Miranda, 3.
When five farmworker families pooled their money to build the Don Jose Mobile Home Park on a plot of dusty land here, they knew little about building permits.
So they jury-rigged almost everything: electricity was tapped from a post meant to power one well, the dirt road was covered in rugs to keep down the choking dust.
Twenty years later, some things have improved. But the park is still without permits. Its 55 residents live in aging trailers and cope with prolonged power outages. Their dirt road turns to pools of mud when it rains.
But its manicured lawns, whitewashed iron gate and carefully tended rose bushes signal that despite its flaws, it is home.
This part of the Coachella Valley, with its abundant agricultural fields, is dotted with unpermitted mobile home parks, housing thousands of farmworkers in dozens of tiny neighbourhoods that were never designed to be permanent.
What to do about them has long vexed county officials. There have been attempts to shut down the worst ones. But as one county official said, “there’s just too many, quite simply,” to start closing them down — and, crucially, not enough alternative lowcost housing.
Safety problems and lack of infrastructure can be overwhelming. Tap water, taken from wells, is sometimes tainted by arsenic and unsafe levels of cancercausing chromium 6. Power outages are common, sewage systems are frequently inadequate and trailers are often crowded and crumbling.
Because of this, some advocates say it’s best to start fresh with new housing. But resources are scarce.
Sergio Carranza, executive director of the non-profit Pueblo Unido Community Development Corp., said a better model is to invest to help residents and owners bring parks up to code.
“These families, with the little income they have as farmworkers, have managed to invest in land and mobile homes, but they never got assistance to properly do it,” he said. “There is no question that they want to do improvements.”
Since last year, the county has taken steps to improve conditions for people living in existing parks.
To address one of the biggest problems — prolonged outages caused by makeshift power systems — officials authorized the use of temporary construction power lines to return power.
The county has also undertaken a $3.4 million project to pave dirt roads at 35 parks.
This year, the county will make standardized designs for septic, electric, water and fire-suppression systems available to small-park owners. The plans, which would create something of a blueprint for permits, eliminate the need for each owner to hire engineers and streamline a part of the permitting process that many found overwhelming.
“We kind of all seized on the idea that if we had a standard plan, or a cookbook, to make this work, that would allow these owners to allow the process to move forward,” said Bob Lyman, regional office manager for the Riverside County Transportation & Land Management Agency.