LANSING, Mich. – The Migrant Labor Housing and Advisory Board had its first of several meetings last week to help determine how rules related to housing for farmworkers will change in Michigan.

The Michigan Farm Bureau’s Craig Anderson was one of 14 people appointed to the board, a state level body recently created by the Michigan Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD). The board was created alongside the Food and Agriculture Housing Task Force, which was created to help come up with solutions to the problem of housing for the state’s farmworkers.

According to Anderson, the migrant labor housing board is about advancing the cause of finding or creating housing for not only migrant workers, but all farmworkers in the state. The board is scheduled to have a meeting every other week through the month of April. After that it’s supposed to come up with recommendations it will provide to the department, which may or may not act on the recommendations. The creation of such a board is a requirement under state statute.

“The task force report acknowledges the obvious – what everyone in the industry is aware of – that we do have a very tight housing supply and a difficult time expanding the supply of good, economical housing for farmworkers,” Anderson said. “The goal of the board is to improve the housing conditions of those working on farms.”

A recently released 40-page task force report highlights possible solutions to the migrant housing problem, which exists in some other states as well, not only Michigan. It highlights nonprofit housing models in Oregon, New Mexico, Maine and Michigan. The report describes one such effort, called SunRISE Apartments, which is described as Michigan’s only active non-profit, off-farm dedicated agricultural housing community. SunRISE began with a grant from the USDA in 1986 and was built to meet the needs of the agricultural community in Keeler, a township in Van Buren County in Michigan’s Southwest corner.

Farmworker Legal Services provided a statement about SunRISE and other housing models from different states to the task force, which was incorporated into the report. “I think the board shows a real commitment by Jamie Zmitko-Somers and Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer to address housing issues,” said Dorian Slaybod, a staff attorney at Farmworker Legal Services. Zmitko-Somers was appointed agriculture development division director at MDARD on January 12.

“I think there’s a role for employer provided housing, but should it be the only option for employees? I don’t think so,” Slaybod said. “What I see often in my job is that a worker gets fired and is then evicted on the same day. How many jobs do you have where you lose your job and at the same time you lose your housing?”

The task force report also highlighted Oceana Acres Apartments, a small complex of apartments built in 2018 by Peterson Farms in Oceana County on the state’s west side. Oceana Acres currently has 56 units, which are able to house up to 280 individuals.