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Washer Access Sorely Needed for Manatee County, Fla., Farmworkers

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 16--PALMETTO -- On a recent tour of permitted farmworker housing facilities in Palmetto, members of The Latino Community Network of Manatee County concluded that accessible laundry facilities are sorely needed.

"We saw a farmworker mother walk a mile pushing a baby stroller with a sack of dirty clothes on her back," Luz Corcuera, president of the Latino Community Network, said Thursday during the group's annual meeting at El Sombrero Restaurant in Palmetto.

While pushing the baby, the woman walked from 8th Avenue East in Palmetto and crossed U.S. 41, only to discover that the washing machine in a strip mall laundromat was out of service, Corcuera said.

Six laundromats in Palmetto were visited, and only two seemed close enough to farmworker housing, Corcuera said.

The group concluded that rather than one central laundromat, putting commercial washers and driers in small and large Palmetto businesses that are close to farmworker housing might be the answer.

"What we are really looking for now is space to put the washers and pay phones for them to call home," said Christine Talcott-Roberts, a migrant farmworker program specialist with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "We need some business partners."

Talcott-Roberts, who took the laundromat tour, helped secure $70,000 in HUD funds for a Manatee County Farmworker Needs Assessment last year, which first pointed out the need for laundry facilities.

Clothing worn in pesticide-laden fields are a danger to pregnant mothers, children and the workers themselves if they are not laundered daily, said Laura Morton, with Florida West Coast Resource Conservation and Development Council, Inc, a nonprofit which works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Morton helped secure $10,000 in USDA funds for the laundromat project.

"The clothes won't get laundered if they can't get to the laundromat," Morton said. "They may not have other clothing to wear, but even if they do, it is not healthy to leave the dirty clothes at home."

A recent Herald story on the group's laundry quest resulted in five washing machines and several driers being donated to the Latino Community Network.

These machines, which were not commercial, were put in private farmworker homes where they are used by farmworkers, Corcuera said.

HUD used results of the needs assessment to print maps of farmworker housing in Palmetto and elsewhere, which the Network used to take its tour.

The Latino Community Network is a five-year-old advocacy group founded to help Latino families in Manatee County, including migrant farmworkers.

At the luncheon, The Latino Network honored group charter members Edna Apostol, Lynda Douglas, Sharon Carlson and Maria Matos, as well as El Sombrero owners Alejandro and Eduardo Alvarez who are active in many Latino issues.

TO HELP: The Latino Community Network wants to put commercial washing machines and driers and pay phones in various business locations near farmworker housing in Palmetto. Information, call Laura Morton at 723-3252 or e-mail at Laura.Morton@fl.usda.gov

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

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Source: The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.)

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