West Marin Worker Housing Often Substandard and Faulty, New Report Finds

Low-wage Latino workers who reside in Marin County’s western region often live in substandard rentals with mold, mice and other serious problems because they have no other affordable options, according to a report released Thursday.

The study on the West Marin housing landscape, which was funded by the county and philanthropic organizations, offers a glimpse into the living conditions of the population, relegated to a largely underground rental market that powers the agriculture and tourism industries in the bucolic area.

Nearly 80% of the study’s participants lived in units with several major health and safety violations, according to interviews with dozens of Latino workers, representing the experience of more than 280 adults and children. The conditions, ranging from non-functioning toilets to holes in the walls and leaky ceilings, were particularly acute at housing on ranches, where most of the respondents resided, according to researchers.

Jasmine Bravo, who lived as a child in local ranches where her father worked, remembers the smell of mold, which can be toxic, in the shower and while falling asleep. Rats scratched the walls. She hopes the findings stir the local community and county to act.

“People have been aware of these conditions for so many years and have just looked away or have wanted to help, but nothing has come out of it,” said Bravo, 29, who was an interviewer for the report. “This survey is putting facts on paper. You cannot look away any longer.”

According to the report titled Growing Together: Advancing Housing Solutions for Workers in West Marin, the area needs a bare minimum of 460 additional units of quality housing but likely closer to 1,000.

The lack of decent housing for agricultural and other lower-income workers and their families is threatening the survival of local farms, restaurants and other businesses, according to employers surveyed for the report.

Much of the land in West Marin, spanning from Stinson Beach in the south to Tomales in the north, is protected from development and dedicated to parks or agriculture. Restrictive land use policies, limited infrastructure for water and septic systems and community resistance to new developments have made housing scarce and very expensive, researchers concluded.

Most Latino households in the rural area rent their homes. Researchers found that many long-term rentals are unpermitted, old and often mobile homes or conversions of buildings not designed for residential use.

Ranches are a top provider of affordable housing in West Marin. Most of the surveyed dairy and cattle workers lived in employer-provided housing. Other ranches have closed agricultural operations but continue to offer rentals.

About half of the 68 Latino workers who participated in the in-depth interviews had one or more household members working in agriculture, including oyster and vegetable farms. The rest had jobs in fields such as food service, landscaping and housekeeping.

Many reported reluctance to request repairs because they feared losing the only housing they could afford near their jobs. Half of the participants were undocumented immigrants, even though all reported living in the United States for 20 years on average.

In Bravo’s case, rent for her family of six was taken out of her father’s paycheck.

“That’s another reason a lot of these people don’t feel like they have the right to say something because it’s tied to their employment, and they fear losing their employment if they speak up about these conditions in their homes,” said Bravo, who became a community advocate with the Bolinas Community Land Trust and is pushing for fair and secure housing.

In 2022, the county found dozens of Latino families living with raw sewage on the ground and using water through garden hoses in unpermitted mobile homes at a Bolinas ranch. The property, which was cited about 30 years ago for unsanitary living conditions, now hosts a temporary recreational vehicle park secured by the Bolinas Community Land Trust while it attempts to build permanent homes.

With its natural coastal beauty and uninhabited open space, West Marin draws millions of visitors each year and most likely don’t see where the people shucking oysters, milking cows or making organic cheese live.

As more workers in West Marin commute from Sonoma and East Bay counties, local employers face increased competition from other businesses that are also recruiting for jobs, according to the researchers, who surveyed a total of 150 workers and 17 agricultural employers.

Tamara Hicks, co-owner of Toluma Farms & Tomales Farmstead Creamery, bought permitted Airstream and Park Model trailers to house four of her 10 employees at the 160-acre property. They share a kitchen with all the amenities in a separate building. But that’s not a long-term solution, she said. She expects her workers, currently single and in their 20s, to move on to have families and better housing.

“The biggest rate-limiting factor of maintaining great people is the housing by far. And so, I’ve lost most of our really fantastic people to Vermont, to Maine, to Arizona,” said Hicks, who has owned the certified-organic goat and sheep farm with her husband for 21 years.

Hicks said many farms and ranches in the region are more than a century old. Some landowners now fear that trying to fix or build units could lead to inspections that open the door to costly penalties due to other code violations, she said.

“There’s not a good, streamlined, affordable, fast, easy way for people to either rehab existing housing or build new housing,” Hicks, 56, said.

She and her husband have plans that were drawn a decade ago to build a couple of units for workers on their land. But the biggest obstacles have been permits and the money to do it, Hicks said.

The study makes several recommendations to counteract what authors call decades of inaction limiting affordable housing. They include, among other things, proposed reforms to zoning and permitting and a code amnesty and financial assistance for landowners who want to improve housing.

“I wish there was one solution. I’d say housing is a team sport,” said Cassandra Benjamin, who led the study and is interim director of housing at the Marin Community Foundation. “The way to solve this is through everybody flexing and doing more than they’re doing now — from the county to the local foundations, to the nonprofits, to businesses, to residents. So everybody has to be in this.”

The report also recommends that foundations invest in strengthening Latino organizing and advocacy so that agricultural workers and other residents can participate in housing solutions. Racist and exclusionary policies have long constrained opportunities for this workforce in Marin County, the most segregated in the Bay Area, according to the researchers.

“We really became very restrictive, both in terms of community acceptance but also regulation about housing,” Benjamin said at her office in Point Reyes Station. “That’s part of what we have to turn around in this work. And what’s exciting is that county supervisors know we need more housing. The ranchers are advocating for it. Certainly, the workers are. So I’m hopeful.”

Edward Flores, who studies farmworker wellbeing at the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, said the mass shooting that killed seven workers at two farms in Half Moon Bay last year highlighted deplorable living conditions for farmworkers at those sites, increasing awareness about the issue throughout the state.

If Marin County decides to use public funds to help agriculture businesses build housing, Flores said it would be an opportunity to support employers that raise pay and safety standards for laborers.

“The question is, how do you best support the farms that want to do the right thing?” he said. “Because the competition is so stiff that if you’re not providing public subsidies to those farms that want to do the right thing, they might be pushed out of business, and that’s not in the public interest.”