Coachella Valley: One of the Poorest, Densest Areas in the U.S.

Israel and Fatima Gutierrez family's mobile home has moisture in the vinyl floor, plywood covers former windows, and frogs occasionally snake their way through pipes. Residents try to make these 720-foot mobiles homes habitable, even without air conditioning in over 100 degree weather, and toxic materials are illegally dumped in the area, sometimes near residential trailers.

People living in the 125 illegal mobile home parks also have to share space with other migrant workers during grape season. ". . . an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 migrant workers pour into already crowded quarters, sleeping in fields, alongside irrigation ditches or on swatches of cardboard in the dirt parking lot of Leon's Market in Mecca," writes Patricia Leigh Brown for California Watch.

This video from California Watch, produced by Carrie Ching, follows resident Ana Sanchez as she explains life in the Coachella Valley.