08 Jul Aging, Inadequate and Overcrowded – What were the migrant housing conditions that spurred Bienestar’s development?

In 1980, the Washington County Community Action Organization conducted a study, titled Migrant Housing Planning Study, to examine the conditions of the county’s seasonal migrant farmworker housing, or “migrant camps.”

Of 380 units, or “cabins,” surveyed in fifteen grower-operated camps located in North Plains, Cornelius, Scholls, Banks, and Gales Creek, the study reported: “Virtually all of these structures are aging and ill-equipped or substandard by local health and housing codes.”

Most of the camps were 20 years old and constructed on “concrete piers or wood beams with a single sheet of plywood and tarpaper for walls,” the study reported. Bathroom facilities were located in separate buildings or outside and often did not have adequate lighting. Ventilation was poor. Overcrowding and lack of space was a principal concern: the study found the average occupancy to be 5-6 people in a 12 foot by 15 foot unit.

Between the late 1960s and mid-70s, an average of 3,000 migrant seasonal farmworkers came to Washington County from Mexico or Texas and the Southwest to harvest seasonal crops, including blackberries, strawberries and cucumbers. They stayed for anywhere between 3-6 months. The Braceros program created during World War II between Mexico and the US brought thousands of migrant farmworkers to Oregon to work as agricultural laborers and it carved unofficial pathways for migrant labor that would continue well past the program’s end in 1947.

A questionnaire given to farmworkers in June of 1980 and included in the WCCAO study found that 66% of those living in the migrant camps answered that conditions in Oregon were worse than where they came from. Answers to what could be improved included, “stop leaks in roof, add kitchen sink, provide inside toilets, install glass windows…”

Rosalia Ginsburg, a retired nurse who administered health services to migrant farmworkers as part of Virginia Garcia’s outreach program for over 30 years beginning in the 1970s, recalled visiting the camps. 

“The conditions of one camp is not the same like the other, maybe a little better, but always it was so full of people,” said Ginsburg. ”There are three beds, we’ll call it bunk beds, with rarely something to sleep on, they have to put their clothing and stuff because they didn’t have mattresses, a lot of them.”

Ginsburg spoke at “Housing Heroes: The Early Years,” a 40th anniversary celebration for Bienestar, which was founded in 1981 with the mission to provide permanent housing to farmworkers and their families. She recalled another sight for the audience which captured the isolation and inhospitable conditions of the camps.

“The little girl that was nursing the baby sister with the bottle there, alone totally in the migrant camp. A big migrant camp,” said Ginsburg. “She was outside on the steps of the cabin, and giving the milk to the little baby.”

Hector Hinojosa, a co-founder of Centro Cultural, Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, and Salud de la Familia, also spoke at the 40th anniversary storytelling event about his experience with migrant camps. 

“It was just horrible, horrible to today’s standards and nobody would put up with that anymore,” said Hinojosa. “In fact that’s why most migrant camps have been closed now because the Department of Health has realized that this needs to stop.”

Hinojosa was born in Mexico and came to Oregon to work as a migrant worker, living in the camps with his family as a teenager.

“We were lucky, our room was 14 by 14,” said Hinojosa at Bienestar’s 40th anniversary storytelling panel. “We all lived in this 14 x 14 room, which included the living room,  the bedroom, the kitchen, the dining area…everything.”

The WCCAO study concluded that there was an immediate need for better, and much more, housing for migrant workers, and a need to rehabilitate housing facilities which accommodated year-round workers.

It was right around this time, in the late 70s and early 80s, that Bienestar volunteers began to address the need for housing and Latinx community services. The first community built by Bienestar and supported by concerned residents, churches, and partnering organizations, was Elm Park in 1983, after a successful campaign fought against opposition to the project by residents of Forest Grove.

This story is brought to you by Kaiser Permanante, LMC Construction, and Mark Schwing.