Living on the backstretch: immigrant racetrack workers and their families fight for fair housing.(FEATURE)(Arlington Park)

THE THOROUGHBRED HORSES AT ARLINGTON PARK Racetrack in the Chicago suburbs have much more spacious, comfortable living quarters than the 1,200 mostly Mexican immigrant grooms and "hot walkers," who exercise horses and tend to their needs. During the summer racing season, the workers exercise, feed and groom the horses from sunup to sundown seven days a week. Then, those workers would go home to the "backstretch," barracks-style housing on the racetrack grounds where families lived up to eight people in a 12-by-12 concrete block, cement-floor room without running water, air conditioning, kitchen facilities or private bathrooms. Many would keep buckets in the cramped rooms for nighttime use, rather than walk outside to a poorly maintained, unsecured public restroom shared by more than 100 people.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

At least that's the way it was through last summer. This March, a settlement was reached in a housing discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the HOPE Fair Housing Center against Arlington Park Racecourse LLC and its parent company, Churchill Downs Inc.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also levied discrimination charges against the track in 2005, noting among other things: "Because there are no kitchens or running water ... the workers and their families used the communal bathrooms for many purposes including toileting, diaper changing, washing dishes and clothes and preparing food, endangering the health of those using overcrowded bathrooms." This was likely the cause of a major outbreak of the intestinal disease shigellosis on the backstretch in 1994.

"Shigellosis is a preventable bacterial infection that can be caused by environmental conditions like 400 people sharing one unequipped bathroom," said Cook County Assistant Health Officer Valerie Webb. "By unequipped I mean no soap, no soap dispensers, no paper towels, not sufficient hot water, not even potable water. Because there were no cooking facilities, people were very often washing their food and their children in the same broken sink. Those conditions will cause outbreaks."

Now, thanks to the lawsuit, the racetrack is building new, higher quality units for families, with air conditioning, microwaves and private bathrooms. As part of the settlement, it also promised to invest $100,000 to expand its summer educational program for track workers' kids.

Rev. Dave Krueckeberg, a Lutheran minister who held services at the track for 38 years, said that decades ago the track workforce was a men-only atmosphere full of heavy drinking and fighting and made up mostly of Black and white workers. Like many industries, in the 1980s the workforce shifted to primarily Latino immigrants with families. Today, the bulk of workers at racetracks around the country are Latino immigrants, including most of the approximately 2,000 stable workers at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. The Arlington Park Racetrack formerly barred children from the backstretch completely, but in 1990 a state appellate court ruled they must offer housing to families.