Rural Justice Forum

FIELD REPORT

This October, CRLA's Rural Justice Forum convened in Sacramento to develop a blueprint for action based on its 2009 published report (Un)Safe at Home: The Health Consequences of Sub-standard Farm Labor Housing.

The Rural Justice Forum, established in 2008, is a series of workshops, symposia, and meetings convened by CRLA to bring together legal and advocacy professionals around pressing policy issues. The Forum seeks out new evidence in the form of research and papers, using the collective expertise of its participant base to help CRLA develop new advocacy platforms.

Rural Justice Forums sprang from a need for further evidence and literature to support many of the issues CRLA staff witness in the field every day. CRLA attorney Ilene Jacobs, Director of Litigation, saw a clear lack of research and analysis of an underlying problem demonstrated by her cases: that living in some of the worst housing conditions in the United States has a severe impact on the physical and mental health of California farmworkers.

Even as far back as Jacob Riis' 1890 photographic expose How The Other Half Lives, most investigations of the impact of housing conditions on health have been focused on inner city communities. But in California, entire communities in isolated rural areas don't have clean water or functional sewer systems, and live in housing that is so structurally dilapidated it is dangerous. "These are the housing conditions in which our clients live," said Jacobs. "And we need more evidentiary information about the effect of this substandard housing on farmworkers, their families and public health."

From this need developed the first Rural Justice Forum, convened by CRLA in 2006. Presented as a literature review and a call for research, the paper was subject to peer review at the Forum and was then completed and published in.

Other Rural Justice Forums followed in 2009, and this past month in Sacramento. The more than 70 attendees represented a broad range of experts, including well-known researchers in the field, universities, representatives from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, nonprofit groups, farmworker housing advocates from CRLA and other organizations, and physicians and researchers who have published previous peer-reviewed work connecting substandard housing conditions to health outcomes.

Through bringing together experts from disparate concentrations to focus on specific issues, CRLA is leading the way for new research and publications to support evidence-based advocacy. Read more about the issues at hand and CRLA's recent ligitation on behalf of farmworkers in Pescadero living in substandard housing here.

HOLD THE DATE
TUESDAY - OCTOBER 4, 2011

California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. invites you to attend our

CRLA RURAL JUSTICE FORUM on

Farmworker Housing Conditions and Related Health Disparities:
Seminar for Advocates, Researchers and Practitioners

SEMINAR LOCATION
THE SIERRA HEALTH FOUNDATION
Sacramento, CA

Please hold the date for this forum!

It is designed to bring together advocates, researchers, practitioners and policy makers to identify needs and propose solutions to address the needs for improved housing and infrastructure in rural communities, by shaping research, planning advocacy & developing policies to help mitigate the effects of rural poverty and racism.

A FORMAL INVITATION WILL FOLLOW
For more information, please call or email Bonnye Hughes, event coordinator, at:
bhughes@crla.org | 530.742.7235

This is the second in an ongoing series of symposiums, seminars and workshops on farmworker housing and health.

Building Capacity for California's Rural Non-Profits

Presented by California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.

September 27, 2011

10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

LOCATION
PRESERVATION PARK, Oakland, CA

PLEASE REGISTER TODAY...SPACE IS LIMITED

What makes a community "rural?" How can our work in rural communities be made more effective by looking at the essential traits of "rurality"? In what ways does "rurality" influence approaches to nonprofit capacity-building?

CRLA invites you to join us for a full day of engaging discussion, problem solving and learning. This symposium is shaped by a newly completed research paper commissioned and written by CRLA and Ron Strochlic, former Executive Director for the California Institute of Rural Studies.

The paper will serve as centering piece for engaging participants in a rigorous exploration of the need for and possibilities in building capacity for non-profits in rural areas of CA.

Attendees will receive a copy of the paper in advance of the meeting.
RSVP to learningpartnersclp@gmail.com.

If you have questions about the program, please contact Mike Courville at
mcourville@crla.org.

Please RSVP to ensure receipt of the paper.

2010 Report

(Un)Safe at Home: The Health Consequences of Sub-standard Farm Labor Housing

"Farmworkers and their families in rural California and throughout this country often are forced to live in the most despicable and challenging conditions. They sleep in onion fields, live in caves dug into canyons, bathe in irrigation ditches, huddle under tarps or find refuge in cars, tool sheds, barns and in river banks, face rent gouging for substandard and dangerous housing units, rent rooms in dilapidated old motels, face housing discrimination because of who they are, what they look like or the language they speak and suffer retaliatory eviction and firing should they have the temerity to complain about such third world conditions in the richest nation in the world." Ilene J. Jacobs, Director of Litigation, Advocacy and Training California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.

(Un)Safe at Home: The Health Consequences of Sub-standard Farm Labor Housing was developed as part of the Rural Justice Forum (RJF), an ongoing series of conferences, workshops, and symposia convened each year by CRLA to showcase emerging research and advocacy focused on the needs of low-income rural communities and marginalized populations within California. This paper reflects the focus of the RJF over the past two years: Addressing the persistent problem of substandard housing for farmworkers, and the related health implications of living in unhealthy environments.

We hope you will join us in addressing this problem and finding solutions that will bring about healthier, safer lives for farmworkers in California and beyond.

2009 Forum Events

Please check back periodically for updates on the next Rural Justice Forum.

2008 Forum Events

Our first Rural Justice Forum focused on farmworker housing and related health disparities.The Forum centered on a discussion of an original paper entitled, (Un)Safe at Home: The Health Consequences of Sub-standard Farm Labor Housing. The paper was authored by a working group comissioned by CRLA to explore related research and literature on the topic of health and housing for farmworkers.

Housing conditions for many of California’s farm workers continue to be so poor that the residents’ health and wellbeing is clearly threatened. Health risk associated with housing range from inadequate sanitation to lack of heat to the psychological effects of long-term residence in what can only be described as “housing” if the broadest definition is taken. While the health risks area clearly apparent in individual cases, empirical research examining the association between farm workers’ health and their housing is underdeveloped.

Download the Full Invitation [1.6MB]

The authors include:

Dr. Don Villarejo, PhD, Farm Labor Policy Consultant, Davis, California,

Marc Schenker, Professor, Dept. of Public Health Sciences, UC Davis School of Medicine, CA

Ann Moss Joyner, MBA, Vice President, Cedar Grove Inst. for Sustainable Communities, Mebane NC

Dr. Alan Parnell, PhD, President, Cedar Grove Inst. for Sustainable Communities, Mebane NC

Reviewers Include:

Dr. Thomas A. Arcury, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC

Dr. Asa Bradman, PhD, MS, Associate Director, Center for Children’s Environmental Health Research University of California, Berkeley

Ms. Ilene J. Jacobs, Directory of Litigation, Advocacy and Training, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.

Dr. Edward Kissam, Census Grant Researcher, JBS International, California

Dr. Juan Vicente Palerm, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Dr. Gary Richwald, MD, MPH, California

Ms. Melinda Wiggins, Executive Director, MTS, Student Action with Farmworkers, NC