Qualla: Duroville

Duroville: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Duroville was not, technically, supposed to exist in the form it took. The Desert Mobile Home Park near Mecca, California, sat on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation and grew into a community of around 4,000 people, most of them Purépecha farmworkers from Michoacán, Mexico — people who had come to harvest the dates and grapes and vegetables of the Coachella Valley and needed somewhere to live. What they built was precarious and overcrowded and, by 2009, the subject of a federal court order. It was also home.

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Duroville: Harvey Duro and the Community He Hosted

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The park took its name from Harvey Duro Sr., a Torres Martinez tribal council member who created the community on reservation land. As both a tribal member and a landlord, Duro occupied a complicated position: he was providing housing — often the only affordable housing available...

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Duroville: The Forced Migration That Almost Was

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When federal and state authorities sought to close Duroville due to substandard conditions, the case moved to the federal courts. On May 1, 2009, Judge Stephen G. Larson ruled that relocating the community 'would create one of the largest forced migrations in the history of this ...

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Duroville: The Plan That Didn't Come

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Redevelopment plans were drawn up. New housing was proposed. The Torres Martinez tribe, the state, and federal agencies worked through negotiations about how to replace Duroville with something more suitable. Then the 2012 California budget crisis arrived and the redevelopment pl...

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