Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Weedpatch, CA

Weedpatch is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Kern County, about 10 miles south-southeast of Bakersfield in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Weedpatch had a population of 2,206 at the 2020 census, down about 17% from 2,658 in 2010.

The community has only around 900 households, and the Census Bureau's survey data put its median household income at roughly $22,000 — it is considered one of the poorest areas in Kern County.

More than nine in ten Weedpatch residents are Hispanic or Latino, and the community's life revolves around the surrounding farm fields of the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Weedpatch is best known for Weedpatch Camp — officially the Arvin Federal Government Camp, later the Sunset Labor Camp — built by the Farm Security Administration in 1936 to house Dust Bowl migrants fleeing the Oklahoma plains.

John Steinbeck visited the camp while researching The Grapes of Wrath, set part of the novel there, and dedicated the book to the camp's first administrator, Tom Collins; photographer Dorothea Lange also documented conditions at the camp.

Three original camp buildings — the post office, the community hall, and the library — still stand and were added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 22, 1996.

Remarkably, the camp never closed: it still operates today as the Sunset Labor Camp, providing housing for migrant farm workers under the Housing Authority of the County of Kern.