FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS

June 8, 2005

MIGRANT CAMPS MAY BE CLOSED

Fort Myers considers condemning buildings

By Jeff Cull and David Plazas

As many as 180 migrant farm workers and their families could be left homeless if the city of Fort Myers decides to condemn buildings in two farm labor camps.

City code enforcers say the homes — mainly 40 shacks clustered together around common toilet facilities — at the Antonia Longoria Migrant Camp and Tomas Longoria Migrant Camp are essentially unlivable.

"Some of these structures are terrible," said Mike Titmuss, the city's chief code enforcement manager. "Technically, by our ordinance, we could probably condemn all the structures."

Many have leaking roofs, missing windows, and unsafe electrical connections, and raw sewage has been reported on the grounds of the camps, which are next to each other at the corner of SR-82 and Teter Road near Interstate 75, officials said. An electric power pole that recently was snapped in half is held together by a 4x4 timber.

Titmuss said city building officials will inspect the 19-acre site next week and make a final deter-

determination on the buildings. Should they decide to condemn the structures then the city will have to decide how to displace so many people. The camps have permits to house 180 residents but only about a third of the space is occupied.

"We just can't throw those people out into the street," he said. "We're trying to be humane."

Titmuss estimated that it would take six months to get everyone relocated.

Alejandro Delgado, a camp resident who arrived here from Fort Worth, Texas, three months ago, works as a maintenance man at one of the camps, so he doesn't pay rent, he said.

His job is to keep the place orderly.

"They (government officials) inspect this place every month," he said.

Delgado said he has heard rumors since earlier this year that people could be forced out of their homes.

"Here, I live all right," he said.

However, he added that he hasn't decided where to go if he has to leave the community.

"I don't know," he said.

No one has offered up any options, he said.

Fort Myers inherited the farm labor camps when the owners, Antonia Longoria of Punta Gorda and Tomas Longoria Jr. of Teter Road, volunteered to have the property annexed into the city in March. Before that, Lee County had jurisdiction. Once it became the city's ward, code inspectors viewed the grounds and decided there were problems.

Antonia Longoria did not return phone calls seeking comment. Tomas Longoria Jr., who is a state-registered farm labor contractor, could not be reached.

Fort Myers City Councilwoman Veronica Shoemaker, whose district includes the camps, also could not be reached.

Typical rent at the Fort Myers labor camp is about $35 per week per person when six people live in the four-room huts, or about $840 per month, said Carlos Longoria, a cousin of Tomas Longoria and a resident of the camp since 1998.

"It's the cheapest place people can live," he said of the camp that is usually full from October through June with seasonal farm workers.

Lee County building officials have ignored code violations at a Bonita Springs RV park because those residents have nowhere else to live. The violations involve illegal additions to units that are used as living quarters in Manna Christian RV Park, officials said.

County health officials have inspected the camps periodically and noted a number of infractions.

There is room in Lee County for 782 migrant workers and their families in seven labor camps. The loss of the Fort Myers camps will reduce that number by 23 percent, further compounding the county's affordable housing problems.

Housing officials estimate that there is a 30,000-unit affordable housing deficit in Lee County. Dramatically escalating land and construction costs have hampered efforts to provide housing for lower-income families.

But it is the immediate problem that concerned Lucas Benitez, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group of mostly Latino laborers based in Collier County.

"What is clear is that these people will be uprooted," Benitez said.

And he hopes that officials will take an interest in helping the residents find a new home should they lose their old ones.

"Help them find a more decent place to live," he said. "Often times people in these situations will be forced to live in a place with worse conditions and pay higher rent for it."