Thread: Day Laborers

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinio ... -editorial

Day Laborers

South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

March 19, 2006

ISSUE: After years of handwringing, day laborers are still a problem in Lake Worth.

There's a good reason Lake Worth still has a significant day laborer problem: The city hasn't really done anything about it yet.

Sure, herding the crowds of laborers off Lake Avenue and onto nearby shuffleboard courts seemed like a fine temporary solution to the traffic jams and safety concerns the men created. But the out-of-the-way gathering spot was merely meant to buy time until a more comprehensive plan could be put in place.

Sadly, Lake Worth has done little in the year since, and its short-term approach has fallen flat.

Some looking for a day's work of menial labor do gather at the shuffleboard courts. But too many others still loiter on Lake Avenue, interfering with traffic and blocking the entrance to storefront businesses as they try to hail drive-by employers.

It's disappointing that a city task force failed to do much to steer the city toward viable, long-term options. But it seems Mayor Marc Drautz is making some progress, sluggish as it may be, toward what this city really needs: a community resource center.

He won't have to look far for a model. Jupiter is opening a center that will match workers with employers and so much more, providing social services, English classes, counseling and even medical care. Drautz is also knocking on the right doors, soliciting help and money from county and federal officials.

Like Jupiter, Drautz and the rest of Lake Worth's leaders will also need the guts to withstand the barrage of unfair criticism from those who believe that treating undocumented workers with dignity and humanity is the same as condoning illegal activity.

In the shadows of a recklessly porous U.S. immigration policy, legions of undocumented workers flock to cities like Lake Worth to toil in jobs no one else will take, propping up a national economy that would be wrecked without them. Until the issue is addressed at the federal level, cities are left to deal with the difficulties the workers bring with them.

A center is the best answer. Lake Worth has to accept that, and move more forcefully in that direction.

BOTTOM LINE: A center is the best answer.

Some looking for a day's work of menial labor do gather at the shuffleboard courts. But too many others still loiter on Lake Avenue, interfering with traffic and blocking the entrance to storefront businesses as they try to hail drive-by employers.

Anyone in Florida ever heard these words: loitering? vagrancy?

Call the cops! And keep calling them until the problem goes away. The last thing they should do is build them a "center" unless they want another million or so. I have a feeling that the places that keep "helping" these criminals by building them employment centers, giving them food, giving them clothes, providing cheap housing, encouraging them to go to college and in some casees even paying for it are going to be the places that wind up with the whole kit and caboodle before it's all over with. Admittedly, it will make it easier to find the criminals and deport them but I feel sorry for the American citizens who have to live in these cities and towns that kiss illegal behinds. I live in one now so I know exactly what that feels like.