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Doors closing on opportunity photo by Bob Pennell Development agency helped farm workers find jobs, build lives By Jonel Aleccia They�re celebrating today at the Central Point Florist shop, where designer Alicia Villa is marking her first day of unsubsidized employment. Villa, 45, of Medford, is a former fruit packer who got her new job thanks to training offered by the local branch of the Oregon Human Development Corporation. "She�s just wonderful and we�re so happy to have her," said Lori Calhoun, 40, who works at the shop. "This was such a great opportunity." Ironically, the agency that offered new opportunities and emergency aid to farm workers such as Villa will close its doors today, having failed to find enough qualified clients. But workers packing boxes at the Medford branch Thursday said restrictive rules, not lack of need, doomed the effort begun in 1979. "I think that there really is a lot of need," said Daniel Ornelas, a case manager who provided services to more than 200 Hispanic families last year. "If the requirements were a little bit more flexible, I�m sure a lot more people could be helped." The closure disturbed other area agencies that serve Hispanic clients as well. "We�re looking at it as a big shame," said Maria Underwood, wellness and prevention coordinator for La Clinica del Valle in Phoenix. "Especially now, just as the harvest season starts." As it was, only one in four farm workers who sought job training and emergency shelter, food and fuel from the OHDC could qualify for services under federal Department of Labor guidelines, said Ornelas. "For this program, there were so many people that were not considered farm workers, even though people were saying, hey, this is farm work,�� he said. "If they were driving pears on farm land, that was fine. But if they were transporting the fruit from the orchard on a federal highway, the client did not qualify anymore." A plethora of restrictions governed farm workers� hours, types of work and whether they earned money at other jobs. Male applicants were required to register for Selective Service. All workers had to be documented employees with incomes within federal poverty guidelines. "You want to know how come we�re closing, since we have so many farm workers here? It�s the rigidity of the eligibility for the participants," said Jose Marroquin, employment services representative. About 3,000 workers were employed in agriculture in Jackson County in 1999, according to state Employment Department statistics. Between 1,500 and 2,500 were farm workers. OHDC employment services aided about 20 people this year, but emergency aid helped many more. Without the program, Hispanic families will have to turn elsewhere for food, shelter and other help in a crisis. "Something has been taken away," said Marroquin. "That is a place they can go that is strictly for Hispanics." But a supervisor at the Portland-based OHDC headquarters said the agency gave the Medford office, one of seven regional sites, a good effort. When outreach, grants and fund-raising failed to pay off, the group with a $2.6 million annual budget decided to cut its losses. "I feel like we took it seriously; I feel like we really tried," said Jeanette Ewald, operations director. Ewald said she�s hopeful that the farm worker services OHDC offered can be absorbed by other area agencies such as The Job Council and ACCESS Inc. But workers such as Alicia Villa aren�t optimistic. "I�m very sad," she said, in Spanish through an interpreter. "It�s a program that had the potential to help a lot of people. Now a lot of people are going to miss out." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA