Life is harsh for the 4,000 migrant workers who live in the Desert Mobile Home Park, where hundreds of dilapidated dwellings sit along dirt streets. The 110-degree air is thick with large black flies and the stench of raw sewage. Wild dogs prowl the alleys.
But conditions could get even worse if the federal government follows through on its threat to close this site on a sun-baked Indian reservation because of rampant health and safety violations.
"Where are we going to go, where are they going to put us?" asked Angelina Cisneros, 59, who lives with her family of four in a crumbling sea-green trailer. "We don't have any money."
The fertile Coachella Valley is one of the nation's richest farming regions and home to five-star tourist destinations such as Palm Springs. But the thousands of migrant workers who toil in the fields struggle to find housing. On annual wages of just $12,000, many families can afford only squalid homes.
Desert Mobile Home Park is unusual because it's located on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation — beyond the reach of state and local governments.
Thus far, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has not been able to provide any alternatives for residents, even as it prepares to ask a federal judge next month to order a phased closure of the park over four months.
The judge could agree or instead demand that the owner make repairs or put the park into federal receivership.
The bureau is working with county officials to find alternative housing — a daunting prospect in a region southeast of Los Angeles where demand quickly overwhelms the 200 or more affordable units that come on the market each year.
"There's no easy answer, and I wish there was," said James Fletcher, Southern California superintendent of the bureau. "Is it better for people to continue to live in those kinds of conditions? That's the balance we have to strike."
The migrant workers are essential to the farming economy, harvesting nearly $1 billion of table grapes, dates, chili peppers and other crops from the region's heavily irrigated fields.
A number of agricultural areas across the country are facing similar problems. In Washington state, some migrants have lived in a tent camp for four years on commercial land near an airport. In North Carolina, the governor is considering a bill that would allow close monitoring of migrant housing conditions.
In California, farmworker advocates are appalled by the living conditions but caution that shutting down the trailer park will not help residents. They want the federal government to take over the site and make urgent repairs while working out a long-term closure plan.
"The focus should not be on closure but on rehabbing the park to address the most serious health and safety issues," said Arturo Rodriguez, a staff attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance.
The conflict began in the late 1990s, when local officials began cracking down on illegal trailer parks hidden away on county land.
Harvey Duro, a member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, opened 40 acres of his land to the migrant workers who were being displaced.
With trailers in tow, the workers flocked to Duro's land.
Conditions worsened until 2004. Federal officials ordered numerous repairs after the facility was cited by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for alleged clean-water violations, open sewage, illegal dumping and overcrowding.
Alan Singer, a spokesman for Duro, said the landlord has spent tens of thousands of dollars repairing the water system and eliminating hazardous conditions.
"If the park is shut down, it will be a total disaster," Singer said. "They'll live where they used to live, which is under trees and in cars because that's the only place they have."
Residents pay $275 a month to rent a space for a trailer. With utilities, they said, the monthly bill frequently tops $500, even though water and electricity service are often lost for days.
During peak season as many as 20 people live in some trailers at the park, located near a recently closed dump and an open-air wastewater treatment pond.
The latest federal inspection came last month, after a fire destroyed eight trailers. Fletcher, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said few improvements were found.
"You have to put in at least basic infrastructure — proper water, proper sewer, proper electrical — and he didn't do any of those," Fletcher said.
Singer said the Bureau of Indian Affairs has not shared the latest inspection report with Duro and accused the federal agency of trying to take over Indian lands in a "new-millenium land grab."
Riverside County is considering several options for residents who could be displaced if the park is closed, including asking for temporary trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and expanding a mobile home loan program that helps residents in unlawful camps secure replacement housing.
Still, local government would be overwhelmed if thousands of people became homeless during the next few months, said Denys Arcuri, a spokesman for county Supervisor Roy Wilson, whose district includes Coachella Valley.
"We just don't happen to have 2,000 empty homes to put people in," Arcuri said.
**Photo Courtesy of Damian Dovarganes (AP), with slideshow
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