Polanco mobile home park
Time period: 1990s to present Location: Southern California, Inland Empire especially Riverside County Small trailer parks for farmworkers Key features - Allowed in agricultural zones - Utility connections have been a challenge Cities get the spotlight in discussions of the housing crisis, but in California, where a million people work on farms, there's also a rural housing crisis. Here is a story of the polancos: farmworker communities named after a California Assemblymember's landmark law. California's fruits and vegetables are grown mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, the Imperial Valley, and the Central Coast. Work is seasonal but labor intensive - during harvest, dozens of workers are needed on each farm. However, while there are lots of farm jobs, there isn't much housing in this area. This is especially true in eastern Riverside and Imperial counties, where there are few cities and towns. Rural land did not allow more than one house per farm. Many farmworkers...