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Access to high quality jobs, access to well paying jobs, and creating climate smart business opportunities
This distinctive economic vision prioritizes people over profit. Eastern Coachella Valley Polanco farmworker communities have embraced this vision for decades, building culturally rich and close-knit communities on the principles of local ownership and control of assets. Pueblo Unido works with Polanco community leaders to identify opportunities for locally rooted inclusive democratic enterprises, such as the El Milagro Farms ECV social enterprise, community infrastructure, climate-smart fair wage jobs, and improved access to capital—a sustainable community wealth-building approach to local economic development focused on self-reliance, climate-resilience, and social justice.
Housing Justice
Affordable energy Efficient Climate-Resilient community designed housing
Due to the affordable housing crisis in the Eastern Coachella Valley, Polanco farmworker communities have identified and practiced an owner-occupied, community-based cooperative solution. Families purchased land and older used mobile homes—but climate change demands greater protection from heat waves, heat illness, pollution, and floods. In January 2024, Pueblo Unido completed the construction of the first Polanco community-designed single-family AgriHousing demonstration unit using green building principles—a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, climate-resilient home designed by and for farmworkers.
Access to Safe Drinking Water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH)
Most of the Eastern Coachella Valley’s 100+ Polanco communities- California’s largest farmworker mobile home population—lack connection to city water and sewer lines. Contaminated wells provide unsafe drinking water. Pueblo Unido has installed point-of-use Reverse Osmosis water filtration systems in 400+ homes, providing safe drinking water for more than 1,500 Polanco community residents. Pueblo Unido’s Polanco community organizing secured a $23.4 million infrastructure investment—the most significant investment for drinking water in the Eastern Coachella Valley.
Nature-Based Community Solutions & Technical Assistance Solutions
Climate change is inflicting greater suffering and causing significant harm to Polanco communities due to their pre-disaster marginalized status. Pueblo Unido is working to empower the Eastern Coachella Valley’s Polanco farmworker community with various critical resources to mitigate the most threatening impacts of climate change: heat and heat illness, flooding, and air pollution.
The Eastern Coachella Valley houses the largest population of farmworkers living in mobile home parks, known as Polanco’s, in California. The history of Polanco parks in the Eastern Coachella Valley is simply unique and remarkable. Self-initiative, leadership, and entrepreneurial spirit best describe the resilient character of farmworker families. Using a cooperative approach, families invested in land and purchased used mobile homes to address their affordable housing needs.
Considered the largest community of mobile home parks per-capita in California, Polanco families provide the essential labor force that generates over $700 million in agriculture sustaining our food system and supporting the local and regional economies. Despite this contribution they are the largest disfranchised population of Riverside County lacking basic infrastructure, affordable housing and economic development opportunities.
While strong family networks, entrepreneurial expertise and a tremendous work ethic sustain the Polanco Parks, these farmworker communities lack financial and technical assistance to address applicable code violations and replace/repair substandard mobile homes.
In 2008, PUCDC started with a $250.00 donation from founder and Executive Director, Sergio Carranza. Using a community-driven model of rural development created by PUCDC, we collaborate with Polanco communities to advocate and procure seed funding that will leverage greater investment in our rural communities. For every $1 secured through donations and grants, PUCDC has leveraged $7 in direct community investment from donors including foundations and government agencies. Since 2010, PUCDC has secured and leveraged $63 million in the organization’s core areas: Affordable Housing, Community Economic Development, Rural Infrastructure, and climate change.
Pueblo Unido CDC is launching new climate-resilient community initiatives to address climate change in the Eastern Coachella Valley. Please click on PARTNER WITH US for further information on how to become a partner and donate to improve the quality of life of farmworkers in the Eastern Coachella Valley.
The new climate-resilient 1,050 sq. ft. single-family residence features Structural Insulated Panels, an open floor plan living room/kitchen/dining area, two full bathrooms, three bedrooms, point of entry reverse osmosis water filtration, photovoltaic solar system, energy-efficient heat pump/mini-split cooling, and green infrastructure with native trees.
Pueblo Unido CDC responds to the needs and concerns of underrepresented rural communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley through actively engaging and fostering collaborative efforts among residents and other stakeholders to find viable solutions, leverage critical resources, and bring new opportunities to improve the quality of life for its residents.