Low wages and a stagnant housing market have pushed Salinas families to the margins. Advocates say the city’s low-income farmworker community bears the heaviest burden.
Resi's parents rent the living room and a bedroom in a two-bedroom apartment by the California Rodeo Salinas grounds from a couple with a disabled daughter, who sleep in the other bedroom.When Resi comes home from college for a night, she bunks in with Aldo in the living room. Although there isn't much privacy, she said, he loves it when she stays the night.
The Alisal is an island unto itself. Those who grow up here often refuse to leave; it’s home, no matter how crowded or expensive. They cite comfort, love of the community, and weather that reminds so many of the Mexican state of Michoacán: mild and sunny nearly year-round. As a councilmember, he championed new high density housing projects, mimicking preexisting complexes such as Acosta Plaza, once known as Feldman Flats. “Projects that were well-designed, pretty soon they start exploiting that and putting in more people than should go in,” said Salinas. “And they start deteriorating."
By that time, Acosta Plaza developed a significant youth gang violence problem, earning the nickname "Felony Flats."“What we found as we started working with clients who were gang-impacted, gang-involved, was that so many of them were homeless or housing insecure,” said Salinas' Community Safety Division Director Jose Arreola.
Surrounded on all sides by lucrative farmland, Salinas can no longer grow outward in most areas. It also, however, cannot climb upward, as the steel-beam framing needed to go beyond four floors is too expensive, said Megan Hunter, the city's director of community development. Housing, immigration, it all touches one another.
“That’s absolutely a code enforcement issue," said Purnell. "But we also recognize that’s an outcome of poverty. How do you ticket your way out of unfair wages? A garlic peeler at Christopher Ranch, she slips out of bed at 1 a.m. most days to catch a ride north to Gilroy, sometimes falling asleep on the car ride. She is careful to not wake her 5-year-old grandson, Kender, who shares her bed.
Cal Property Management, which manages Jenni's apartment building, said the building was in dire need of repairs and it would not be livable for tenants while they completed the renovations, such as electrical upgrades and plumbing work. Like Resi and her family, Jenni has adapted to life in Salinas, making what she and Kender have feel like home.
Kender Ricardez Tobon, 5, stamps a drawing he made at school on the walls of his home. He lives in a small apartment complex on the East Side of Salinas with his grandmother Eufemia "Jenni" Aguilar.Jenni tries to project confidence in front of Kender. She never swears in front of him, or raises her voice when talking with him.That makes it easier to create a home for Kender, who was born to her teen daughter with drugs in his system.
Acosta Plaza is on her mind — it’s only a few blocks from where she lives, and it’s one of the cheaper places in the area. On the bus, Resi settles into a middle seat for the 40-minute ride between California State University Monterey Bay and her parents’ home in Salinas. She usually tries to choose a seat near other Mixtec women — she can always tell who is Mixtec by their clothes, she said.
Resi decided to attend a four-year college, paid for by scholarships she earned from the League of United Latin American Citizens and Sen. Anna Caballero's office. She believes education is her way out, her way to make a better life for her family."I went through a lot...I didn't give up," she said. "I haven't ended up six feet down underneath."
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