Sewage in the Apple Grove: Public Health Agency Efforts to Address Substandard Housing in a Rural New Immigrant Destination

Background & Purpose:  Across the U.S., cities, suburbs, and rural areas are experiencing an unprecedented influx of Latino immigrants. However, human services institutions in these new destinations are often unprepared to serve these newcomers, many of whom are undocumented, rendering them ineligible for many supportive services and vulnerable to exploitation. Especially in rural communities, where human services infrastructure is underdeveloped and residents hold more conservative attitudes towards immigrants, agencies navigate a challenging service context in responding to immigrants’ needs. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining human service agency decision-making in rural new destinations. 

Method:  This research used case study methods to give a close, in-depth account of agency decision-making in response to a crisis in which Latino immigrant families were living in a rural apartment complex with a malfunctioning waste system. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with agency staff, lawyers, immigrant advocates, and community members familiar with the case or the immigrant residents. Document reviews of media reports and court transcripts provided detailed insights into the actions take by the agency and perspectives of participants and community members.  A focus group with agency staff and 40 hours of participant observation yielded insights into the agency’s work with immigrants and staff perspectives on a growing immigrant population. We identified themes and sub-themes, and explored the dimensions of those themes and their relationships to one another. Prolonged engagement with the community, triangulation of multiple methods and sources, member checking with participants, and thick description of the community and the agency, contributed to the trustworthiness of the findings.   

 

Results:  Our analysis suggests that several factors influenced the agency’s response.  First, the lack of other responding institutions in the rural area spurred the agency to take the lead in addressing this crisis.  Second, the professional ethos of agency leaders, who valued the protection and support of the immigrant residents, led the agency to channel considerable resources toward the immigrants. Agency staff helped find suitable housing for displaced tenants, transported their belongings, and even transplanted residents’ gardens to their new homes. Third, the outsider status of the complex’s landlord, who was also a Latino immigrant, likely facilitated community support for the agency’s pursuit of criminal charges, a decision which may have proved divisive had the landlord been an established resident of the community.  Finally, one unexpected finding was that the agency’s efforts to help immigrant residents provided transformative opportunities for staff to better understand the challenges faced by Latino newcomers in this community. 

Conclusions & Implications:  The spread of Latino immigrants to new destinations across the U.S. is likely to produce conflicts between established and immigrant residents.  This study suggests that new destination human service agencies have the opportunity to mediate these conflicts and to support vulnerable immigrant families, even in the midst of divisive views toward immigrants.