In the first five months of operating, Santa Barbara County’s pilot Farmworker Resource Program connected with more than 3,500 farmworkers.
“This could now be the model for the state, getting boots on the ground, connecting people with needs to … our resources. It’s not fiscally conservative to have a bunch of programs and have nobody use them,” county 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson said during an update on the center at the Dec. 14 Board of Supervisors meeting.
The farmworker resource center consists of a mobile unit that travels around the county to connect farmworkers to job training, education access, school supplies, financial literacy classes, rental assistance, labor and employment rights information, homelessness prevention resources, and forms and document assistance.
Santa Barbara was one of three counties that received an $833,000 state Department of Community Services and Development grant that ends in May 2024. The center kicked off services in July and is run by one executive director and three farmworker resource specialists and partners with more than 40 agencies.
From July to November, the resource center engaged with 3,578 farmworkers at various events throughout the county, registered 2,089 farmworkers to receive information about services or special events, and provided 1,233 farmworker referrals to other organizations in order to provide the assistance they need, said Luis Servin, the Santa Barbara County Workforce Development Board executive director.
Within referrals, 40 percent were surrounding education access and support—mainly for school supplies—and 37 percent for emergency supportive services—primarily requests for food, clothing, rent assistance, and immigration legal services, Servin said.
“A lot of farmworkers struggle the most with filling out forms for services, and I’m talking about forms in English or Spanish. What we’re finding is that we have to spend a lot of time helping them … walking them through the process of applying for anything,” Servin said.
Farmworker Resource Specialist Cesar Guerrero added that many farmworkers who come into the mobile unit have had agencies that will charge them certain amounts of money to complete “a simple form.”
“An appointment with the Mexican consultant, they can use their phones with WhatsApp to set up an appointment for free, but they go to other agencies that charge them X-amount of dollars,” Guerrero said. “We’re not only providing that service to them, but educating them to do it on their own time and set up appointments.”
Since the team works with Social Services, members are right there to provide immediate help with any application forms—like CalFresh or MediCal—streamline the process, and help with any partner agencies, he said.
The resource center representatives will come back to the Board of Supervisors in March with an update on other funding sources to keep the project going after the state funding has expired and will outline the priorities for the future beyond the scope of grant’s requirements.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino—who initially voted against the resource center—said he was looking forward to March specifically to learn more about how to keep the program going in the county as the state faces a $68 billion budget deficit.
“The reason why I didn’t support it at the time was not because I didn’t think the need was there. The state grant provided 75 percent of the funding and based on where we see the state right now, I don’t really see them re-funding this in the future,” Lavagnino said. “But I think with the successes you’re bringing us, it’s making it a lot easier to make that transition as well.”
This article appears in Dec 14-24, 2023.