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Welfare rolls fell in the San Joaquin Valley and Fresno county even though unemployment rates remained high, although the decrease in the number of TANF-CalWORKS cases leveled off at about 60,000 individuals in Fresno county in 2002-03. About 21,000 recipients of cash assistance in Fresno county are 16 or older, 55 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent of the new applicants arrive from elsewhere in California or from other states.

The number of individuals receiving Food Stamp benefits is rising: Fresno county had 101,000 Food Stamp recipients in 2003 and 140,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries. In June 2002, the county was providing one or more of the three major means-tested benefits, CalWORKS, Food Stamps, and Medi-Cal, to 221,000 Fresno county residents, including 130,000 children and 91,000 adults in 97,000 cases. The average cash grant was $635 for 2.2 persons, and 66 percent of recipients were Hispanic, 14 percent white, and 11 percent Southeast Asian. [Fresno county's population of 805,000 is 45 percent white, 39 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent Southeast Asian.]

The number of persons receiving CalWORKS payments in Fresno county was about 78,000 in 1999/00, 71,000 in 2000/01, and 69,000 in 2001/02- half of the adults receiving CalWORKS payments have not finished high school. The average number of CalWORKS cases fell from 35,000 in 1996-97 to about 23,500 after 2000. When asked why they were applying for cash aid, a third of the applicants said they lost their jobs, and another 30 percent recently moved to Fresno. A third of the applicants had never received cash aid before.

Unemployment in Fresno and Madera counties fell to 10.1 percent in August 2004, a five-year low. In September 1999, at the height of the economic boom, the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. The 73,000 farm jobs were almost 20 percent of the total in Fresno and Madera counties.

Fresno's Regional Jobs Initiative, which aims to create 30,000 jobs each paying at least $30,000 a year over the next five years, sponsored a Tourism Summit in September 2004 aimed at attracting tourists to county lakes, cultural festivals and agritourism, such as fruit trails; the goal is to create 5,000 additional tourism jobs. Tourism promotion is to be financed with a six percent tax on hotel rooms, and suggestions for attracting tourists included renaming Freeway 99 "El Camino Central," and calling the San Joaquin Valley "The Other California," a place with "Ag, Antiques and Art."

Firebaugh, a city of 6,000 in western Fresno county that is 90 percent Hispanic, has had few elected Hispanic officials, largely because only 25 percent of residents are registered to vote, and fewer than half of those registered cast ballots. The number of Hispanic elected local officials in California increased from 675 in 1996 to 952 in 2003, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Firebaugh may lose jobs when 200,000 acres of farmland in the Westlands Water District are taken out of production, but gain jobs as a result of a new federal prison in nearby Mendota. However, 64 percent of Firebaugh adults have not completed high school, which may make it hard to diversify the economy away from seasonal farm jobs, as many candidates want to do.

Housing-Riverside. In Riverside county, a 48-bed migrant worker housing facility is to be built in the unincorporated community of Oasis. Meanwhile, UC-Riverside anthropologists received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to conduct a three-year study of Mecca, Thermal and Oasis and their adjacent trailer parks, which are home to many farm workers.

Most farm workers are able to live in subsidized housing only while doing farm work, but Riverside county has one of the few projects offering subsidized housing for retired farm workers. The Desert Gardens Apartments in Indio, where 33 of 88 units are reserved for retired farm workers, were built with a $5.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, plus $1.2 million from the state and Riverside County. The other 55 units are available to workers legally in the US who obtain at least 50 percent of their income from farm work- they pay 30 percent of their earnings in rent. There are about 30,000 farm workers employed at peak in the Coachella Valley.

Retired farm workers often live in subsidized housing open to all poor retirees. In 1999, the nonprofit housing arm of the United Farm Workers union built an 80-unit complex in Delano where rent is $185 a month for a one-bedroom apartment; tenants do not have to be ex-farm workers.

The Los Angeles Times profiled immigrant families in Santa Ana, a city of 338,000 that ranked first on an "urban hardship" list released by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government with a score of 74 Fresno ranked eighth with a score of 54, while Seattle ranked as the city with the least hardship, a nine. Santa Ana has the nation's second-highest share of foreign-born residents, the median age is 26, and the average household is 4.6 people. The city's per capita income of $12,152 was about half that of Orange County as a whole, but rents of $1,100 for a two-bedroom apartment are about the same as in the rest of the county.

About 20 percent of Santa Ana's residents have incomes below the federal poverty level despite an unemployment rate, 6.6 percent in July 2004, that was just slightly higher than the rate for California. Local observers say that many people have several jobs, but are poor because of low wages, large families and the high cost of living.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development, which provided funds to operate 21 migrant centers, doubled the rent from $3.50 to $7 and $8 a day in 1996 and 1997 without notice. A judge in August 2004 found the rent hike unlawful because there was no advanced notice to the residents, and ordered that the extra $600,000 rent be repaid to tenants. The current cost of renting two bedroom apartments in the migrant centers is $9.50 a day, and $10 day for three bedrooms.

California expects to spend $35 million in grants and loans for farm-worker housing in 2004-05, and another $25 million for migrant housing; the money is from a $2.1 billion housing bond approved by voters in 2002. AB 1462 would make it easier to use these funds in agricultural communities that cannot easily find matching funds.

Housing-Napa. Many farm and nonfarm workers are unable to find affordable housing in Napa county, known for wine-based agri-tourism. In June 2004, Napa county settled a suit brought by two farm workers by identifying sites for over 400 low-income housing units and re-affirming that housing may be provided for six or fewer farm workers where residential development is allowed and for 12 or fewer on agriculturally zoned land; the workers living in such housing do not have to work on the property where they are living. Napa County also agreed to undertake a new study of farm worker housing needs.

The California Human Development Corporation operates four camps for farm workers on behalf of the Napa Valley Housing Authority: Calistoga, Mondavi, River Ranch and Beringer. Camp residents, who are supposed to be primarily farm workers, pay $11.50 a day for a bed and three meals; the cost in 2004 was reduced to $10 a day after the camps did not fill with workers. The actual cost of operating the camps is higher, about $18 a day, and wine grape growers tax themselves $8.49 per acre of crop-producing land to help cover the deficits of the camps (they pay if they do not provide housing for the workers they employ).

The St. Helena Catholic Church had allowed migrants to camp on the porch of the church for $5 a day, but stopped the practice when the CHDC camps did not fill up.

In 2004, 47 percent of US Latino households owned their homes, compared with 68 percent of all US households. Studies suggest that a combination of factors: unfamiliarity with or skepticism of formal credit markets, unauthorized status and the concentration of Latinos in expensive housing markets such as California work against more home ownership.

The federal government has paid the full cost of Section 8 rent vouchers, 1.9 million, that are given to poor tenants to help them find and pay for their own housing. In April 2004, HUD said that for FY04 it would pay only an amount based on the cost of a voucher in August 2003, plus an inflation adjustment. In September 2004, HUD backtracked, and said it would provide additional funds to housing agencies that complained. Section 8 enables poor, disabled or elderly tenants to receive vouchers from a local housing agency and redeem them with any private landlord who is willing to participate. Tenants pay 30 percent of their income in rent, while the vouchers pay the rest, up to a limit set by the federal government, depending on the local market.

Education. To settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2000, the state government in August 2004 promised to spend more on students in poor neighborhoods so they get equal access to basic instructional materials in all core subjects and so they be taught by qualified teachers in sound and healthy schools.

California got a $105 billion budget one month after the July 1, 2004 deadline, and once again deferred hard choices with borrowing and other short-term fixes to the state's structural deficit. The California Performance Review, a 2,500-page effort to overhaul state government to save money, was released to much fanfare in summer 2004, but independent analysts said that even if fully implemented, the recommendations would save only half of the projected $5 billion to $6 billion a year.

California got a 16-member Council of Economic Advisors in September 2004, headed by former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Its goal is to propose ways of making the California economy more competitive in hopes of spurring job creation. California added 158,600 payroll jobs between July 2003 and July 2004, a slightly faster rate of job growth than the US, but California's July unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was higher than the national August unemployment rate of 5.4 percent. The median household income in California was $49,300 in 2003, below the $50,008 median income in the dot.com boom year 2000.

Mike Anton and Jennifer Mena, "The Hard Life-Santa Ana Style," Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2004. Lou Hirsh, "Farm worker study by school is funded," Desert Sun, August 18, 2004.