State Ends Ban On Tents For Migrants

The state Board of Health has adopted regulations allowing farmers to build permanent camps with cooking and shower facilities for migrant workers.

The rules reverse a longstanding ban on tent camps and make it easier for farmers to apply for an exemption to other Health Department regulations.

The strict health regulations caused farmers to abandon oldtime bunkhouses and cabins, leading to a shortage of migrant housing.

Tents had been banned for migrant-worker housing on grounds that they posed a sanitation hazard.

Michael Aoki-Kramer, policy analyst for the Health Department, said the reversal last week is part of an agency effort to encourage farm-worker housing.

Wording also would allow farm workers to bring their own tents, so long as they meet state health and safety regulations for netting, screening, doors and windows.

A department report last year estimated a shortage of 119,000 beds during the harvest season in the Columbia Basin, the Wenatchee area and the Yakima Valley.

“We have a large number of workers, and because of the crisis in Mexico, we’re probably going to have many more,” said state Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle, chairwoman of the Senate Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee.

“It’s desperate down there, but I know one of the things we all fear is that it undermines our own local workers’ ability to find housing.”

Prentice introduced a bill that would require the state Building Code Council to devise a less expensive set of standards for farm-worker housing.

The new rules still require concrete tent platforms with electrical outlets, central cooking facilities and central camp plumbing for showers and sinks.