Governor Gavin Newsom said the bills are about scaling the state’s efforts toward increasing housing.
FRESNO, Calif. (CN) — California Governor Gavin Newsom signed three bills on Tuesday focused on expanding housing and benefits for farm workers in the Golden State.
Two of the bills are intended to help agricultural workers get affordable housing, as well as streamline efforts to build that housing. The third expands the circumstances in which a worker can use sick time.
“Farm workers are the backbone of California’s nation-leading agricultural industry and play a critical role in ensuring the stability of the state, nation and world’s food supply,” Newsom said in a statement. “Investing in their well-being is investing in California’s success.”
Assembly Bill 2240 — written by Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, a Fresno Democrat — affects farm worker housing in different ways.
It empowers the state’s Department of Housing & Community Development to prioritize workers already living in Office of Migrant Services seasonal housing for permanent housing. It would tap into an existing grant program, which is used for developing multi- and single-family housing for farm workers.
Arambula’s bill also will lead to the identification of excess state-owned land near migrant services housing that could become agricultural housing.
Additionally, the housing and community development department must determine the possibility of changing temporary migrant services housing into year-round, permanent homes.
In a bill analysis, Arambula wrote that the state in 1965 provided migrant workers with seasonal housing from April to November. However, most farm workers now have families and aren’t migratory, single men.
“Farm workers should be treated with dignity and respect reflective of the essential contribution they make to California’s agricultural economy and local communities,” Arambula wrote in the bill analysis. “AB 2240 ensures that farmworkers and their families are not separated because of outdated policies and that their children’s education is not interrupted.”
Assembly Bill 3035 — written by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Clara Democrat — expands an existing streamlined, administrative approval process for agricultural worker housing in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. A cap of 36 housing units will rise to 150 in those counties, which Newsom said will help solve the issues of inadequate living conditions and overcrowding.
Pellerin, in a bill analysis, wrote that those two counties have a rich agricultural legacy, though both have significant seasonal and long-term housing shortages. That leads many workers to live in shelters, motels and vehicles.
“To better facilitate the development of affordable housing for agricultural workers, AB 3035 establishes a pilot project that allows streamlined development of agricultural worker housing in areas within 15 miles of an area designated as farmland, and that allows eligible housing projects to build more units per development,” Pellerin wrote.
Newsom said the bills were about scaling the state’s efforts in housing, adding that an “enormous” amount of work remains.
The final farm worker-related bill Newsom signed was Senate Bill 1105, written by state Senator Steve Padilla, a Chula Vista Democrat.
The bill will enable farm workers who work outside to use their paid sick leave to escape heat, smoke or floods during a local or state emergency.
“By allowing farmworkers to utilize their paid sick leave during climate emergencies, California can treat farmworkers as essential workers, instead of sacrificial ones, by ensuring they do not have to choose between their safety or their livelihood,” the California Food & Farming Network wrote in a bill analysis.
The governor also signed a slate of firearms-related bills on Tuesday, including Senate Bill 53.
That bill, written by state Senator Anthony Portantino, a Burbank Democrat, will require anyone who possesses a firearm in a home to keep it securely stored when it’s not being carried or in that person’s control.
The bill becomes effective on Jan. 1, 2026.
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