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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Migrants find lots of work, but little housing
Seasonal worker shortage could be linked to shortage of low-income rentals
By KARA HANSEN
The Daily Astorian
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
 | ALEX PAJUNAS — The Daily Astorian
From left, Eugenio Herrejón, 37, and Estevan Garcia, 22, install new energy-efficient windows and replace shingles at one of the units at Emerald Heights Apartments in Astoria. Herrejón has lived there 13 years and Garcia four years. As summer begins, repairs must be made quickly to allow renters to move in. |  |  | Low-income housing options like the 300-unit Emerald Heights Apartments have reached full occupancy and have been forced to turn people down or create waiting lists as demand for affordable rentals increases on the North Coast.
ALEX PAJUNAS — The Daily Astorian |
Fish processors are feeling a bit pinched to staff their operations as sardines crowd ocean waters off the North Coast this week.
Business owner Jay Bornstein attributes the labor shortage to a simple problem: "There are more jobs available than people to fill them."
Some point to industries such as construction competing for workers to fill temporary jobs, others say tougher border enforcement has cramped the flow of immigrant laborers across Mexico's border.
But this year, seasonal workers are feeling a squeeze of their own.
"They don't have a place to live," said Andreina Velasco, a migrant recruiter with the Northwest Regional Education Service District who helps students in migrant families access public education.
On the North Coast, the busy processing season begins with sardine landings in the Columbia River plume and continues with other fish stocks through the summer. Many migrant workers then move into the holly fields or tree farms before moving south for other seasonal work.
Large, mostly Latino groups are now streaming up the West Coast from picking grapes in California to packing fish in local seafood plants.
In one case, 40 people are coming to Astoria from California, "but there is nowhere for them to live," said Voleen Toten, who manages Elk Creek Terrace apartments in Cannon Beach.
"It's really tough for them right now," she said. "We see people with children living in vans in parking lots. It just breaks my heart."
At the 36-unit Elk Creek complex, one of few options in the area for low-income housing, the wait list stretches a year long, said Toten.
"If I had three times the space here I could fill it, and I'd probably still have a waiting list," she said. "That's how many people need housing."
Similar views were heard at low-income complexes up the coastline.
In Astoria, the 100 units at Bayshore Apartments are full, following a six-month stint with only about 20 tenants, manager Christian Pintea said. Another low-income option, Emerald Heights, is also at capacity. None of its 300 units is available.
Manager Susan Marshall estimated hundreds of migrant workers live at the complex.
"It's really been a struggle, because we are just full," Marshall said. "It's normally not a problem, and we have some people we've accommodated. But I just had someone a little while ago, and I had to tell them they'll have to wait."
While it's the first time the problem has posed such a hard hit to the area's migrant workforce, a lack of affordable housing is nothing new in Clatsop County, said Kathy Lucas, executive director of Clatsop County Housing Authority.
With multiple Seaside apartments undergoing conversions to condominiums, and new high-end condos in Astoria but no new affordable housing, even people with steady incomes are getting edged out of the rental market, Lucas said.
"All the housing agencies in the county are very aware of the lack of workforce and affordable housing," she said, adding a variety of factors are fueling the demand for low-priced summer rentals.
While migrant workers rely on a housing market with affordable rates and fairly short leases, business owners rely on them to provide the long hours necessary for seasonal labor.
This summer, builders working on a new paper machine at Georgia Pacific's Wauna Mill have needed temporary accommodations. Meanwhile, a healthy fish-processing industry has led at least three companies to expand sardine operations this year.
One of those companies, Da Yang Seafood Inc., was looking to fill 180 positions for this summer's whiting and sardine season.
Employees at the Seattle-based company's Astoria plant said already-scarce housing has been compounded by stricter policies at apartments. Some complexes are enforcing caps on the number of tenants allowed per unit, straining a community that often adapts to smaller units by packing in families and friends.
But Da Yang helps those workers in a variety of ways, said staff accountant Matthew Yip, such as providing English classes on nonproduction workdays and helping buy textbooks for those who earn high test scores. The business also works with the Migrant Education Program, supports mission trips by sending supplies to Mexico, and tries to connect workers with low-income housing.
"There are resources and ways to help the workers out so that they can focus on their job and eventually benefit the local community," Yip said. "They are going to live here, spend their money here and pay local taxes here in Astoria."
Between operations at Bornstein Seafoods and Astoria Pacific Seafoods, Jay Bornstein hires 100 extra employees each summer. He said he hasn't heard much about a housing crunch, but then again, it's always difficult to fill all the seasonal positions.
"It has been getting worse; part of it is sardine operations," Bornstein said. "But construction also has a big demand on folks, and agriculture. I think our economy is just very active at the moment."
Local agencies have reported limited means for dealing with the housing shortage.
Lucas, of Clatsop County, said workforce housing will be addressed at an upcoming conference, but the meeting isn't scheduled until September.
The company that runs Elk Creek Terrace is opening a new complex strictly for agricultural and natural resources workers, said Toten, of Cannon Beach. Even though the 22 units at Los Arboles are an hour and a half away in Scappoose, Toten has been recruiting on the North Coast, in hopes of finding some workers temporary shelter.
But these new apartments also have rigid rules for documentation, and Toten has received few if any applications for the units, she said. "Seventy-five percent of them just don't have the proper paperwork."
"We thought if we could get at least a few of them down there, maybe business owners could at least get a bus to take them there and to take them home. They could sleep on the way there and back," she said. "All the fisheries are having a horrible time trying to find enough workers.
"We cannot continue to wait for the government to take care of us. We are people, and we need to take care of our own first."
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