Mendota (Fresno County): a town scraping bottom [View All]

[Liberal_in_LA]

unfortunate title for an article if you live in Mendota

Maria Miranda holds her 2-month-old son, Pedro Jr., at their dilapidated home in Mendota. Her husband, Pedro Sr., says despite trying, he's only able to get one or two days of work a week. (Michael Macor / The Chronicle)


Mendota: a town scraping bottom
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, July 26, 2009
(07-26) 04:00 PDT Mendota, Fresno County --

Maria DeLourdes Oregel hasn't found work since her harvesting job petered out last year, her husband's hours at the local chicken farm have been cut by a third, and even though she feeds her children meat only once a week, she runs out of cash before the end of each month.

She's one of the lucky ones. At least she has a roof and her family has some kind of paycheck.

In one dreadful year, this dusty city in the heart of the most productive agricultural region in the nation has become a desperate place where mothers wash disposable diapers for reuse, children are sleeping in cars, and the unemployed trudge door to door to beg for food.

The fact that the unemployment rate in Mendota, 38.5 percent, is the highest in California doesn't even raise an eyebrow here. The anguish, frustration and hunger are visible in every corner and on every face of this town of 7,800 people 35 miles west of Fresno - and nobody sees any relief in sight.

"I try hard not to be depressed, but the little money we do get we can't stretch enough," Oregel, 38, said in Spanish as she sat in a weekly meeting at a community center, where mothers gather to share survival tips. "It's never been this bad in my life. I even have a friend who called his family in Mexico to ask for help, which never happens. We are always the ones sending our money home, not the other way around."

In the worst national economic crisis since the Great Depression, there are few better illustrations of the resultant human suffering than Mendota, where 95 percent of the population is Latino and 42 percent of residents live below poverty level. Even in a good year, seasonal unemployment ranges above 20 percent because of the transient nature of farm work, but the past year or so has brought a convergence of blows that have made suffering a year-round reality.
Chain of disasters

First came the national housing meltdown, which led to hundreds of foreclosures in Mendota and halted construction on thousands of units of housing and commercial developments in the area. More than 2,000 people moved out of town in the past two years, and the loss of both residents and workers able to buy goods sent sales of everything from chain saws to groceries plummeting.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/26/MNQ718IAAI.DTL#ixzz0MPprvL9C


On edit: This young family needs to demand the owner drop the rent to $300.

Miranda lives with his wife and baby son in a house so dilapidated it's scarcely fit for habitation. He's stuffed toilet paper into holes in his door and walls to block out the wind, the rust on the metal kitchen cabinets rubs off on his pants if he brushes by them, and the paint is so worn it's hard to tell what color the walls are supposed to be.

Miranda's rent is $550 a month, which takes 13 days of fieldwork to earn. That's about as much work as he gets in a good month now, so he lines up with 300 or more people for the town's once-a-month food bank handouts, knocks on neighbors' doors for help and rarely eats more than rice and beans.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/26/MNQ718IAAI.DTL#ixzz0MPwFrPRG