Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Oasis, CA

Oasis is a census-designated place in Riverside County — an unincorporated community, not an incorporated city — in the eastern Coachella Valley of Southern California.

Oasis sits at an elevation of 141 feet below sea level, one of the low-lying desert communities near the northwestern shore of the Salton Sea.

Oasis stretches across about 19.6 square miles of desert along the eastern foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains, with orange groves farmed beneath Toro Peak, and California State Route 86 passes through the community.

Oasis had a population of 4,468 at the 2020 census, a sharp drop of about 35% from the 6,890 counted in 2010 — it first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2010 census.

Oasis is a farmworker community: many residents are migrant agricultural workers who move in and out with the Coachella Valley's growing seasons, which makes its population size less consistent than neighboring communities.

Oasis has about 1,036 households with an exceptionally large average household size of 4.3 people, and nearly two-thirds of households include children under 18.

Oasis is overwhelmingly Latino — about 96% of residents were Hispanic or Latino in 2020 — and it is a very young community, with a median age of just 26.0 years and only about 6% of residents aged 65 or older.

Fewer than half of Oasis homes are owner-occupied — about 45% — with renters in the majority, reflecting the community's agricultural workforce housing.