Soledad property will become new housing for farmworkers.

Some of the rundown homes have already been demolished at the old 72-unit farm labor camp on Benito Street in Soledad. The rest will be bulldozed soon to make way for a rebirth of sorts: new, affordable homes that will soon be built on top of this land with a troubled history.

In the 1940s, it was a camp used to detain World War II prisoners. A decade later the site was transferred Soledad’s Housing Authority, which used the former prison camp to house the families of Mexican workers here as part of the bracero program.

It’s been a farm labor camp ever since—with minimal improvements to the property. The three-bedroom units look like little boxes, with low ceilings and few windows.

“The new housing is going to be very attractive versus the ugly housing that is there now,” says Rep. Sam Farr, who was in Soledad on Wednesday, Oct. 18, to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for the new San Benito Street Farm Labor Center.

Soon, new homes will replace the decrepit camp. In phase one, expected to be completed by late July 2007, 73 town homes will be built expressly for farmworkers, along with parking and playgrounds for kids. The $17 million project is a partnership between Soledad’s and the County’s Housing Authority agencies. One piece of the funding—$4.2 million—comes from the US Department of Agriculture.

“All of these farm labor camps, they all need to be converted to farmworker housing,” Farr says. “The minute I saw the opportunity in Soledad, I thought this was win-win. The USDA is interested in building farmworker housing, but usually they don’t have the land.

“In the Salinas Valley, we need more housing like this. This workforce is permanent. We grow crops about 11 months out of the year. So this workforce that historically was migratory no longer is. Farmworker families are residents of Monterey County and need housing just like the rest of the workforce.”