Where: Coachella Valley, Riverside County, California
Problem: Coachella Valley farmworkers lack decent, affordable housing.
Solution: RCAC provides financing to develop a mobile-home park.

Mobile homes are a major housing source for low-income farmworker households in the Coachella Valley; many are dilapidated and overcrowded and are located in parks with insufficient and unsafe infrastructure. Though the lack of decent, affordable housing for farmworkers has been a problem in Riverside County’s eastern Coachella Valley for some time, it has come into sharp focus in the last 10 years due to code enforcement activities directed at approximately 400 substandard mobile-home parks in the unincorporated areas.

To provide some relief to this community, RCAC’s Loan Fund provided a $230,000 small business loan to Travis Helfman and Melva Gonzalez Recinos to develop a 12- unit mobile-home park for farmworkers. The small park will be modest but will pro¬vide all required utilities including electricity, safe drinking water and waste disposal. It is permitted through special legislation allowing small parks on agriculturally zoned land for farmworkers. Families will provide their own mobile homes. Each household that rents a trailer space must include one farmworker.

In addition to providing affordable housing, the project will create construction jobs and economic stimulus to rural Riverside County.

“This housing shortage has been a growing one for some time, and RCAC offered a real option for funding. I’m not sure where we would be without the help of RCAC. I can’t thank RCAC enough for their help,” said Travis Helfman, Helfman Construction owner/general contractor.