Farmworker Housing Project Comes To Woodland

The non-profit Mutual Housing California says the new complex is part of its push to create affordable, year-round housing for five-thousand agricultural workers in Yolo County. 

Rachel Iskow with Mutual Housing California says Yolo County doesn't have enough housing for the 5,000 seasonal farm workers who live in the county.  Apartment rent will be subsidized and the apartments will be solar-powered.

"Staff and volunteers went out to the farms and packing houses and processing plants to interview people," says Iskow.  "And one of the things we found was in addition to being highly-concerned about housing costs, the next was utility bills."

Vanessa Guerra is the project manager.  Her  parents were farm workers.

'We lived in sub-standard housing.  That made it very difficult for my siblings and I to really feel stable because there were a lot of issues that came up with the home."

Iskow says some of the existing housing for farmworkers leads to health problems, "You see things like diseases like asthma and other diseases and allergies that come from living in substandard housing with leaks and lack of heat and vermin."

If a worker's income is 30-to50 percent of the area median income, that person will qualify for one of about 60 apartments or town homes.

A combination of city, state, and federal grants and loans helped make the project possible.  The loans will be repaid using rental income or federal tax credits.

The apartments are scheduled to open in March of 2015.