During winter months, the four residents of 510 Hillcrest Road
in Hollister bundle in blankets under a sagging roof constructed of
tarp and cardboard.
When the wind blows hard, ropes connecting the ceiling and floor
prevent the roof from sweeping away, like a plastic bag in a
storm.
During winter months, the four residents of 510 Hillcrest Road in Hollister bundle in blankets under a sagging roof constructed of tarp and cardboard.
When the wind blows hard, ropes connecting the ceiling and floor prevent the roof from sweeping away, like a plastic bag in a storm.
The men – ranging in age from 32 to 67 – don’t use a functioning toilet. They walk behind their home to a secluded outhouse permeated with the stench of human waste and sit on a wooden crate with a round hole cut through its middle. Used toilet paper, for lack of decent disposal, litters the surroundings.
While that’s just a snapshot of the structural detriments, the house’s makeshift interior is riddled with health hazards and code violations.
The four residents, all Mexican seasonal farm workers, have lived in squalor – one of them four years, another for two years and a father and son for the past four months.
Hollister officials on Tuesday inspected the property owned by former county Supervisor Harold Cerrato and called it the worst case of substandard housing in the recent history of the city.
“It was like a four-year camping trip,” said Maria De Leon, the city’s associate planner, who was joined by housing officials and Fire Marshal Mike O’Connor at the inspection.
When initially confronted by housing officials Wednesday morning, Cerrato, 75, said he was boarding the men, charging no rent, “from the goodness of my heart.”
The city plans to condemn the 80-year-old structure and require Cerrato, a local developer and farmer, to either refurbish the property or tear it down. Cerrato, because of an ordinance passed by the City Council in January, must pay the cost of the tenants’ relocation. He is liable for their moving expenses and potentially the first three months rent, according to the ordinance.
“This is a classic example of substandard housing,” said Code Enforcement Officer Tim Burns. “I’m amazed it could exist in Hollister.”
The house, he said, was in “by far the most outrageous” condition he has seen in almost 22 years of law enforcement and code enforcement.
As De Leon explained the situation to the Spanish-speaking tenants, the men stood on the house’s raised and visibly shackled deck, their thumbs in their pants pockets and their faces branded by a quiet anguish, a confusion, an innocence.
All four men have migrated throughout California for more than 20 years as migrant workers – most recently to Salinas, Watsonville and now Hollister, according to Cerrato.
De Leon said the tenants didn’t understand the conditions of their living environment. They expressed gratefulness toward Cerrato for allowing them to live there.
“They felt like where they were living met their needs,” De Leon said. She called the tenants “naive” from past living experiences and said 510 Hillcrest is “definitely one of the worst cases” of substandard housing in her 12 years of building code experience in San Jose and Hollister.
The tenants were content without running water and a bathtub that drains directly into the ground. They didn’t mind a ladder, made of scrap lumber, as a staircase to the second floor. They were happy with a stove illegally powered by two neighboring propane tanks, which Burns called “a real fire hazard, a real explosion hazard.”
They were oblivious to the dangers of a flawed electrical system susceptible to overheating and, ultimately, a fire. They cooked meals on an outdoor grill, which they custom-made from two rusted automobile tire rims and an overlaying flat griddle. The outhouse, missing a door, was decorated with a car tire perched over the holed crate.
Amazingly, officials said, the men kept the place “neat and tidy” – for what they had.
“Clearly, cleanliness is not a problem here,” said Senior Building Inspector Allen Contival.
During the agricultural off-season, the men have typically worked for Cerrato, hauling brush and performing various jobs.
“Basically, they were allowed the shelter in exchange for some work from time to time,” said Building Official Ray Proffitt.
In regards to whether the tenants worked in exchange for the living quarters, Cerrato said, “Not really. If they work for me, I pay them.”
A lifelong San Benito County resident, Cerrato moved to his house on the same 45-acre plot in 1957 and farmed apricots and walnuts. But farming his property, he said, has been “phased out” in recent years. Once allowed, he will develop it, he said.
His stint on the Board of Supervisors lasted from 1977-85 and he also sat on the Board of Directors for the county farm bureau.
“I’m trying to cooperate,” Cerrato said. “I’m trying to work this thing out the best way I can.”
He admitted a presence of hazards at the house. However, to the four men who lived there, he said the house was “like a mansion.”
“These people here are so happy to live in a place like that, it’s not even funny,” Cerrato said.
Confronting a social predicament
If the city sues Cerrato for relocation of the tenants, it would be the second use of the new relocation ordinance and the third enforcement of severely substandard housing in the past four months – all part of a mounting effort to penalize negligent landlords in Hollister.
The first instance occurred in late January, when the city removed 18 people from a house and its converted garage at 27 East St.
Those tenants, also migrant workers and also thankful toward their landlord, did not qualify for the relocation ordinance because the law took effect after the house was posted as “Unsafe to Occupy.”
Then in late March, officials condemned two adjoining properties sheltering 15 residents on North Sally Street. In that case, Hollister successfully sued the landlord on behalf of the tenants for $15,400, and the houses were demolished.
In April, a woman died in a fire on Bridgevale Road – in county jurisdiction – when she became trapped in an illegal addition to her trailer, which was illegally hooked up for electricity.
When the city finalizes the Cerrato case, Burns said five more properties await code inspections.
“Each situation presents a new challenge for us,” Contival said. “The protocol is being developed as we go along. Hopefully, we can get it in place and start cleaning up substandard housing issues in the city.”
The city’s struggles with Cerrato and his low-grade house began in 1996, when Hollister officials initially discovered tenants living at the same property.
“It’s my understanding there was an agreement between the city and Cerrato (in 1996),” Burns said. “It’s my understanding that was resolved, and he wasn’t going to continue doing this.”
But in November 2002, workers from animal control searching for strays noticed people in the substandard house and informed the building division. Meanwhile, the city waited six months to inspect 510 Hillcrest because the properties on East and Sally streets demanded priority, as they involved numerous children.
When the team of inspectors arrived at Cerrato’s property this week, a group accustomed to the harshness of impoverished conditions, a sense of shock was shared among them.
“Tragic and sad” are words Burns used to describe his initial reaction.
“It made me feel very fortunate for my personal life,” he said.
Burns, De Leon and Contival returned Wednesday to approach Cerrato and continue the inspection of the house.
“I realize it’s substandard,” Cerrato said. “There’s no children living here, no ladies living here. I furnish them water. I furnish them light. I furnish them everything.”
The tenants, unable to comprehend a word of the lengthy conversation, stood on the porch watching.
Burns told Cerrato the city would condemn the house or force him to demolish it and pay to relocate the tenants.
Cerrato disputed the actions.
“You’re going to force me to pay that?” he said.
Burns said the city will litigate, “because it’s the law.”
“Oh, come on – the law!” Cerrato said.
A vulnerable lifestyle
All three cases of substandard housing this year have involved families supported by migrant farming – a common lifestyle in the largely agricultural San Benito County, which has also experienced a rampant increase in housing costs throughout the past decade.
The county-operated Community Services and Workforce Development maintains the Southside Migrant Labor Camp. It opens Tuesday for six months and typically has full occupancy and a waiting list for its 67 units. But that capacity isn’t nearly enough to support the county’s large population of seasonal farm-working families.
Kathy Flores, executive director of CSWD, acknowledged a problem with substandard housing and said the county’s migrant families are “probably more at risk” than others.
She mentioned a recent CSWD case of a family with children that paid $500 per month for one room and access to the kitchen of a house in Hollister.
“There does appear to be a vulnerability to migrant workers,” Proffitt said, “because of the fact they need a place to stay while they’re here.”
During the initial encounter with officials, Cerrato told Burns other houses in Hollister are worse than his.
“There’s houses in town that are renting, they’re renting in garages,” he said. “They’re renting all over. They’re one on top of the other, that if somebody threw a match, it would all go up.
“This, I realize, is not very good. But at least they’ve got a roof over their head.”
On Thursday evening, Cerrato said there “seems to be” a correlation between migrant workers and substandard housing in the county.
“Those kind of people, they will stay anyplace,” he said. “That’s their calling. Whether it’s OK, I have no say about that.”
