PALM BEACH POST

November 6, 2005

Loss of income, housing focus of upcoming talks

By Alan Gomez

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

TALLAHASSEE — As bad as living conditions were for the migrant farm workers who tend to Florida's fields and groves, Hurricane Wilma made them worse.

"If we were already living 12 or 14 people in an eight-person trailer, now there's 20 of us," said Lucas Benitez, a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

And though work is bountiful right now — with grove owners trying to save as much of their fallen citrus and vegetables crops as possible, scrambling teams to clean up their groves and hurriedly trying to replant destroyed crops — farm workers believe that work will run dry in about a month.

The resulting lack of income and housing will fall under government scrutiny Monday when the Florida Legislative Commission on Migrant and Seasonal Labor meets for the second time.

But members of the commission say there might not be much they can do to help. That's because tens of thousands of farm workers in Florida are illegal immigrants, who cannot qualify for most government assistance programs.

"Maybe we can extend some benefits, whether it's food stamps or unemployment, I don't know," said Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, a member of the commission. "That's what we want to find out. (Farmworkers) are an important part of Florida's economy and need to be treated as such."

However, Bruce Goldstein, executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund in Washington, D.C., said that though there are restrictions against giving federal dollars to undocumented workers, states are free to give out their money as they please.

"There's nothing prohibiting the state from deciding to help undocumented farm workers," Goldstein said. "They have state money. They can pass their own law to deal with their own disaster. These farmworkers are putting food on our tables, and the government should help them."

Basic needs such as housing, fair salaries, health care and education for their children are all things that the state commission will tackle in the next few months before making recommendations to House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, and Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon.

One issue that could be revived is state funding for hurricane-damaged housing.

Last year, a task force headed by Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings recommended $20 million for farmworker housing in the wake of last year's four-storm season. But the Legislature removed that appropriation.

Beyond that, many in Florida believe the salvation of the farmworkers lies not in Tallahassee, but in Washington, where a bill that has been making its way through Congress could help legalize as many as 500,000 workers across the country. The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Securities Act — or AgJobs — has received bipartisan support in Washington and would open doors to government assistance to the illegal migrants that are now closed.

But unless farmworkers have that legal status, state legislators and farmworker advocates worry that there isn't much that can be done to help them.

"We get to that point every time," said Rob Williams, director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Program. "We have a freeze, a hurricane, whatever, and we come to the point where we realize that the risk falls almost solely on the farmworkers. All they can do is go to the church, and maybe there's a little money for them there."

The worst fears of farmworkers — a lack of jobs — may not materialize, however, according to Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven. The commission member, whose family owns citrus groves and vegetable farms around Plant City, believes the devastation caused by Wilma will have an unexpected "silver lining" for migrant workers.

After last years' four storms, Troutman said, farmworkers were redirected to all sorts of recovery jobs, including cleanup and construction work.

He said he expects a similar response this year, with farmworkers finding new, and sometimes better, jobs in the recovery process.

"About a week after each storm, it took off like a Roman candle," Troutman said. "The Home Depots, service companies providing materials, cleanup teams. They all had jobs to offer.... It turned out to be not so bad as we first thought it would."