Under the terms of the agreement, the Chang trust must provide alternative housing in a hotel, motel or apartment for all residents of the two buildings.
View full sizeThis is a screen grab of the Chang family farms' website on the Internet.DEERFIELD – The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has ordered the Chang family of Amherst to shut down substandard living quarters on their farms in Deerfield and Whately and relocate some 21 people.
As part of an Aug. 8 agreement between the Chang Family Trust and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health endorsed by Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Changs must also pay their workers daily meal money, provide transportation to and from the farms and hire local firefighters to perform a “fire watch” on the Deerfield property, which has been condemned by the town’s building inspector. Rose C. and Tso-Cheng Chang are listed as co-trustees.
According to a petition filed by the Department of Public Health in state Housing Court, nearly all the occupants of 23 Sugarloaf St. in Deerfield and 299 River Road in Whately are laborers who work on Chang family farms at those locations. The others are their children.
On July 31, the State Fire Marshal and other officials inspected both premises and found a slew of violations, including the lack of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, poorly maintained electrical systems, exits secured with padlocks or blocked by vegetation, windowless bedrooms and, at one location, an improperly installed wood stove. A packet of photographs included in the case file shows rotting walls and ceilings, water damage, deteriorating roofs, electrical fixtures hanging on loose wires, exposed pipes, rooms full of junk and other health and fire code violations.
Tso-cheng Chang, who earned a doctorate in plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, owns Amherst Chinese Restaurant in Amherst. Representatives of the family were required to meet with health officials at the sites on August 14 for a walk-through to inspect conditions. The parties appeared in Housing Court in Northampton on Monday.
The Whately farm grows beans and organic vegetables and is one of the biggest distributers of bean sprouts in the Northeast. In 2008, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health recalled the sprouts from that farm because of possible contamination. Farm work continued at the site on Thursday, but the rambling house where many workers had been living was closed by inspectors. Beneath the 299 street numerals on the front of the house is an older placard with the numbers “1804,” which apparently refers to the date of construction.
Javier Flores, who has worked for Chang for 2 ½ years, said many of the farm workers are Mexican like himself. Flores said he did not consider the living conditions inside the house to be so bad but noted that the roof leaked. The residents paid Chang $20 a week for board, he said.
When one of the workers contacted a man who identified himself as Chang by cell phone, he asked a reporter to leave the property.
Deerfield Health Agent Richard Calisewski said he has condemned the building at 23 Sugarloaf St. and that Chang has applied for a demolition permit.
“It doesn’t look so bad from the outside,” Calisewski said.
The inside, however, is a different story. When Calisewski and other officials inspected the interior with a search warrant from Housing Court Clerk Magistrate Peter Q. Montori, they found the quarters uninhabitable, Calisewski said.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Chang trust must provide alternative housing in a hotel, motel or apartment for all residents of the two buildings. Calisewski said the Changs have complied, moving workers into Red Roof Inn and other motels. Flores said he is now living in a Red Rood.
The Changs must also pay $75 a day to each family and $50 a day to each individual in advance for meals.