Formation of the Commission
In 1913 the California government created the California Commission of Immigration (CCIH) to deal with the problem of proper housing for the immigrants to California. Migrant workers on the Durst ranch were protesting the way they were being exploited. The situation became violent and four people died. The CCIH sent several inspectors to the ranch, and they determined that the Durst family was to blame because of the terrible sanitation and substandard living conditions on the ranch. There was not clean drinking water or even bedding for all the workers. Soon after, in 1915, the CCIH was given the power to enforce the Labor Camp Sanitation Act. (Woo-Sam 251-252)
The Commission had its critics on the Left and Right of the political spectrum and its policies and effectiveness in controlling conditions in labor camps often reflected the policies of the political party in power.
Labor Camp Health and Sanitation
The CCIH was responsible for seeing that labor camps took basic sanitation measures, such as having clean drinking and bathing water and positioning sleeping and kitchen areas away from stables or chicken coops. Other measures were aimed at keeping the laborers safe from disease carrying insects, such as the requirements for real bedding instead of straw or re-used blanketing, and the requirement for screens on door and windows. To ensure that the people were running the camps were meeting the requirements of the law, the CCIH inspected camps all over California year round. (Woo-Sam 258-260)
Difficulties in Enforcement
Unfortunately, many of the regulations set by the Labor Camp Sanitation Act were difficult to enforce, by the CCIH's own admission (CA CCIH, 2nd Annual Report, 10). Ranchers would often house a large number of laborers in abandoned barns. Ranchers argued that the cost of building suitable housing was too high, and the willingness of migrant workers to endure substandard conditions was the main reason for their employment. Furthermore, the CCIH rarely invoked the force of law by arresting the ranchers running unsanitary camps. The CCIH preferred to advise, coerce and shame ranchers that they inspected into cooperating with the higher standards for labor camps. Over time these measures did improve the living conditions of laborers, and other Western states with similar problems were advised to take comparable measures.
Changes Over Time
"Enforcement responsibilities for the labor camp act were transferred from the CCIH to the Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Housing, on July 29, 1927. In 1937, the Legislature established the California Labor Code which included the provisions of the Labor Camp Act. In 1965, the Legislature repealed the Labor Camp Act and enacted the Employee Housing Act. The new Act regulated maintenance, use, and occupancy of mobile homes in labor camps, authorizing adoption of regulations, and required permanent buildings to comply with the State Housing Law. Also in 1965, responsibility for enforcement of the Employee Housing Act was transferred from the Department of Industrial Relations to the Department of Housing and Community Development, where it remains today.” (CA Dept of Housing and Community Development, "Employee Housing")
For Further Reading:
Woo-Sam, Anne Marie. Domesticating the Immigrant: California's Commission of Immigration and Housing and the Domestic Immigration Policy Movement, 1910-1945. University of California, Berkeley dissertation. 1999.
California Department of Housing and Community Development. "State Housing Law Program." http://www.hcd.ca.gov/codes/shl/SHLHistory.htm.
California Department of Housing and Community Development. "Employee Housing." http://www.hcd.ca.gov/codes/eh/ehhstory.htm.
California Commission of Immigration and Housing. 2nd Annual Report. Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1916.
Croutch, Albert. "Housing Migratory Agricultural Workers in California, 1913-1948." Master's thesis on file University of California Library, Berkeley. 1948.