Farm Worker Housing

More migrant farmworker housing will be available this year. The new facility in Cashmere, called Bender Creek, is expected to open shortly. Dan Fazio with Washington Farm Labor Association talks about the new 200-bed facility.

FAZIO: The State of Washington has invested $6-million dollars in housing for migrant farm workers and we need housing for migrant farm workers, obviously it's better if it's built by the public with private dollars but public dollars work as well.

The thought is that this new facility would replace a 380-bed facility in Monitor.

FAZIO: The one in Monitor was a temporary solution. It was originally put at Pangborn Field and then they rolled it out there. They've been subsidizing that pretty heavily in the last several years and the state has indicated that they didn't really want to subsidize Monitor that much any more. I don't think it was their first choice to put housing in Cashmere. I think the housing is needed further north in Orondo or Chelan or Pateros. There's only one housing facility up in Okanagan.

Fazio says the Monitor facility really needs to stay open.

FAZIO: It would be better to just run Monitor better and Monitor is a good facility, it's an outstanding facility and the reason why it's not performing up to standards is it's not being run properly. The state doesn't really want to continue paying large subsidies that their paying to the county. Now the county is running it in a very inefficient way. They're charging very small amounts for families and they're not taking reservations.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.