Mr. President. it is worth emphasizing the very real and substantial benefits of this bill to the farmer employing migratory labor. in terms of worker morale. willingness to work. stability. efficiency. and the rate and cost of worker dropouts and replacements. I believe this bill and the ones on education. unlike many other divisive legislative proposals. have the happy merit of serving the interests of both groups concernedthe migrants and the farmers themselves. While the advantages of having good housing are apparent to many employers of migrant labor. there are. unfortunately. several stumbling blocks in the way of its attainment. It is not only. or perhaps even primarily. a problem because of the temporary stay of. the migrant. In some areas. this is no doubt true. but in other areas the migrant worker is almost a yearround phenomenon. and there are a good many large employers of migratory workers who could profitably provide better housing. and who would like to do so. Why do they not? Those who are normally considered financially sound often find there are no lending institutions interested in financIng migrantworker housing even at going interest rates. Migrantworker housing is called a Poor investment -risk by lenders. and one can easily imagine how poor a risk it is in comparison with the risk of financing normal. yearround residential housing in rural areas. It Is difficult even to find capital for such housing. imagine how much more difficult it Is to find capital for migrantworker housing. For these reasons. the bill provides for guaranteed loans up to $35 million to take the risk out of this type of investment. and thus facilitate the flow of more mortgage money into this vitally needed kind of housing. The first section of the bill provides tor the insurance of commercial loans to any person up to 90 percent of estimated value for the construction or rehabilitation of housing and related facilities. such as clinics or infirmaries.
Keywords matched
migrant migrantworker Migrantworker migrants