A very significant problem with the program is that the subsidy is not deep enough to make it attractive or worthwhile. Congress recently lowered the interest rate to 1 percent and increased the allowable grant to 90 percent of project cost in hopes of stimulating greater use of the program by growers and grower organizations. Congress must recognize. however. that the terms upon which funds are available coupled with the necessity of local initiative means that housing is unlikely to be provided for migrant farmworkers who are different culturally and ethnically from the rest of the community. This is a program that has not lived up to its potential and that has raised false hopes and expectations among migrant farmworkers. Before we start adding new programs to old ones. let us make old ones effective. Let us get the necessary data to make realistic funding decisions. let us staff the PMHA so that it will have the capability to carry out actively and aggressively the program goals. let us require that truly broadbased private bodies which include migrant farmworkers be eligible to build or repair housing for migrants. and let us face the possibility of a still deeper Federal subsidy if adequate housing for farmworkers is to become a reality.
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migrants migrant