{"id":18213,"date":"2025-08-19T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=18213"},"modified":"2025-08-15T13:56:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T17:56:15","slug":"providing-drinking-water-and-affordable-housing-to-laborers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/08\/19\/providing-drinking-water-and-affordable-housing-to-laborers\/","title":{"rendered":"Providing Drinking Water and Affordable Housing to Laborers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In rural Tulare County, Calif. \u2014 the heart of the state\u2019s vast Central Valley \u2014 agriculture is king, and cows outnumber people. In many of its poor, unincorporated communities, manure and nitrate fertilizers have fouled drinking water, threatening the health of residents, up to 70% of whom are undocumented laborers working the grape, orange, and pistachio fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months after graduation, Tom Collishaw \u201980 came to this hardscrabble place through VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America, a federal anti-poverty program), after majoring in English and history at Colgate. Upon witnessing the need firsthand, he never looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody is just a paycheck away from a real crisis,\u201d says Collishaw, president and CEO of Self-Help Enterprises (SHE), a nonprofit housing and community development organization. He took permanent work at the organization in 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that 42-year tenure, Collishaw has installed water tanks in 160 impoverished communities where the tap water is unsafe to drink. He\u2019s also helped to create 10,000 affordable housing units through SHE\u2019s pioneering mutual self-help housing model, in which families build their own homes together in nine counties that traverse the state\u2019s spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHE started as a bold experiment in the 1960s, a Quaker initiative inspired by a farmworker\u2019s simple dream: \u201cI want a home for my family.\u201d It was the first effort of its kind in the country, and it would spur the creation of similar rural efforts in 38 states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The need has never gone away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides nitrates, naturally occurring arsenic contaminates wells in unincorporated communities that don\u2019t have access to municipal water systems. Today, given heightened immigration enforcement, undocumented workers are loath to draw attention to their plight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is such fear in the communities,\u201d says Collishaw, noting that SHE distributes \u201cred cards\u201d to community members detailing their constitutional rights, should they encounter federal immigration agents. \u201cPeople are not sending their kids to school because they\u2019re afraid they might be picked up. They\u2019ve seen this movie before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenges transcend the visceral. Federal funding, which once comprised 75% of SHE\u2019s budget, is down to 15% of the total. As a result, Collishaw has helped the organization secure state contracts, access private equity, and enter into fee-for-service agreements with cities and counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization has grown to 230 staff members (a nearly fourfold increase since 2014, when Collishaw became CEO), the majority of them people of color whose experiences mirror those they serve. They include construction supervisors, policy advocates, and emergency responders delivering water tanks to homes with wells connected to unsafe groundwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Collishaw, the journey started more than 2,800 miles east in Hamilton. He grew up in New Jersey and was recruited to play basketball at Colgate, his father\u2019s alma mater. The younger Collishaw thrilled to the history lessons of Douglas K. \u201cDoc\u201d Reading, who urged his students to \u201cunderstand\u201d the facts that shape our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy assumptions were continually challenged,\u201d Collishaw says. \u201cThat resonated with me, and it\u2019s definitely informed the trajectory of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, just like the early days in rural California, there is much work to be done. Collishaw\u2019s recipe for success is unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe believe very strongly in collaboration,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s an old African proverb: \u2018If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.\u2019 That\u2019s what keeps me going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since 1983, Tom Collishaw ’80 has been helping California’s undocumented laborers access clean water and safe housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":18215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[2323,354,41,1039,376,165,443],"coauthors":[3058],"class_list":["post-18213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-affordable-housing","tag-alumni","tag-basketball","tag-drinking-water","tag-english","tag-history","tag-immigration"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4JL","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/08\/Tom-Collishaw-119.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18334,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18213\/revisions\/18334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18213"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}