Man. You guys. If it wasn’t for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Santa Maria would still be racist against agricultural workers.
Thank God that federal agency found out about the city’s “discriminatory” housing ordinance and threatened a $400,000 fine for noncompliance. If the city hadn’t repealed its employee housing ordinance, agricultural workers would still be living four to a room in motels and hotels around town.
“Excluding residents from neighborhoods because of their race, color, or origin violates fair housing laws,” HUD’s Acting Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Jeanine Worden said in a statement about the agency’s agreement with the city over the employee housing ordinance. “There is a long history of segregation and exclusion of agricultural workers in this country, and it is time it stopped.”
Oh, is it? Because that whole four-to-a-room thing for H-2A workers was happening before Santa Maria passed its employee housing ordinance and will continue now that said ordinance is repealed.
In fact, the number of H-2A agricultural workers that farm labor contractors are allowed to squish together in the same living space is pretty much the reason that the city passed that employee housing ordinance in the first place! So, HUD, what does the Fair Housing Act say about that?
If HUD made anything clear, it’s that it doesn’t understand that the city of Santa Maria is full of agricultural workers. H-2A workers are just one segment of the ag worker population that calls the city home.
At least Mayor Alice Patino understands one thing, even if she doesn’t understand that the ordinance could be considered racist: “We responded to a local issue by addressing the community’s concerns about their neighborhoods, spent many months working with various stakeholders to get feedback, and reached a consensus and adopted a balanced ordinance to serve the community,” she said in a statement.
She understands her community doesn’t want 10 to 15 adults living in a house meant to house a single family. And you know what makes that a possibility? The H-2A visa program, which lines out specific square footage allowed per agricultural worker.
“I’m a firm believer in private property rights and listening to neighborhood concerns in making regulatory decisions,” she told the Sun.
What she apparently doesn’t seem to understand—still—is that even local regulations have to comply with federal and state regulations, first. Calling the ordinance “employee housing” instead of “agricultural employee housing” was supposed to keep the city out of trouble with HUD, but, of course, HUD saw right through it! Duh!
As much as I disagree with Patino’s defensiveness about HUD daring to stick its nose into a city matter, I can understand why she questions them. As the all-mighty federal champion of anti-discriminatory housing, why haven’t they had a little sit-down with the U.S. Department of Labor to discuss the merits of tin-can housing for agricultural workers?
It’s not Santa Maria’s employee housing ordinance that helped spur a COVID-19 outbreak among H-2A workers staying in local hotels. Not being housed in single-family homes isn’t the reason why an H-2A worker died of complications from contracting COVID-19.
It’s because of the tight situations in which H-2A workers are housed.
Sure seems discriminatory to me.
The canary lives in single-family caging. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 5-12, 2021.
