In Fresno, Tackling Poverty Moves to the Top of the Agenda

The mayor agreed that the lack of affordable housing and decent jobs are major issues confronting the city. But, he said, illegal immigration is perhaps the greatest challenge to Fresno. "We're going to have to secure the border, he said, "reform the illegal immigration system and create a plan that addresses the 4.5 million immigrants in California that doesn't involve amnesty or sending them back."

Autry said that although officials have no idea how many illegal immigrants live in Fresno (the city is about 45 percent Latino, mostly Mexican, with a rising number of Hmong refugees), 20 percent of the people in the county jails are illegal immigrants. About one quarter of emergency room visits are from illegal immigrants and the vast majority of the tenants in the worst housing in the worst neighborhoods are immigrants, presumably including illegal immigrants.

"If we don't have a policy that allows an immigrant to come across with their dignity and their respect as well as their work ethic, we're going to pay an awful price," Autry said. "We already are." He added that Fresno is organizing a summit, to be held next month, where mayors from cities with high populations of undocumented immigrants will devise a plan to tackle the problems they are facing.

But illegal immigration, the mayor acknowledged, cannot be blamed for all of Fresno's woes. As those fleeing the skyrocketing housing prices in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area have converged here in the past three years, land and housing prices have increased by nearly 60 percent, according to the city's housing department, making the dream of homeownership for the working class more distant. Meanwhile, rents have increased by nearly 15 percent.

Developers have swooped in, renovated some of Fresno's deteriorated apartment buildings and then raised the rents, making them unaffordable to low-income residents. The poorer tenants must find cheaper housing, most of it in south Fresno, further concentrating the poverty there. In south Fresno, old wooden buildings are packed with new and longtime immigrants afraid to complain about egregious conditions, including roaches, broken toilets and mold. The cheapest three-bedroom houses rent for $500 a month, but they are nearly uninhabitable.

"The people are afraid to speak up," said Christina Miranda, a tenant organizer who spends her days trying to help poor residents learn and exercise their rights. "Some of the farm workers are Mixtec, from Oaxaca -- they don't even speak Spanish. They speak a dialect. The Cambodians are very closed off as well. The situation is perfect for a slumlord."

Rising rents are sending full-time workers to soup kitchens. Poverello House estimates that 70 percent of the average of 1,200 meals it serves each day are to people with minimum-wage jobs who cannot get by without help.

The Fresno Rescue Mission, which operates the largest homeless shelter in the region, providing 300 beds a night, has found the lines longer at its soup kitchen and the demand for shelter greater than ever. About one quarter of the people who now come to the mission for meals work full time but cannot pay all their bills. "Apartments that were $400 two years ago are now $800 to $900 a month," said the Rev. Larry Arce, director of the mission.

Sterling, the council member starting the poverty task force, said that its first job will be a "thorough needs assessment" in Fresno, starting with her district, which has the highest rate of crime and gang activity and the lowest graduation rate. "This is just a blessed opportunity we have now," she said, referring to how the Brookings report put poverty on the political agenda.