Wall Street isn't the only street hit
By Marietta Homayonpour
Staff Writer
Updated: 11/29/2008 06:05:07 PM EST

DANBURY -- When a large white van slowed near Kennedy Park on a recent sunny -- but very cold -- November day, about six men didn't wait for it to stop before they opened the doors and jumped inside.

They were day laborers -- most were Ecuadorean immigrants -- and they were hoping for some work.

The contractor, who was building a house, only needed two workers that day. "Take me, take me," some of the nearly 20 men who gathered around his van shouted.

Wall Street may get the big publicity, but the effects of the country's economic downturn are felt on many other streets, including those in downtown Danbury, where day laborers seek work in construction, landscaping and cleaning.

"It's very slow," Manny Encalada said of work in the past year.

He has his own landscaping business but comes to Kennedy Park when he has no work.

Encalada, 28, is from Ecuador and has lived in Danbury for nine years. Like many of the day laborers at Kennedy Park, he will accept many types of jobs, including tree work, painting and masonry. He said "carpentry slowed the most."

Because "there's not too much work around here," Encalada said some immigrants are going back to their native countries in South and Central America.

Through the translation of Encalada, 34-year-old Roberto Carlo said he hasn't had a job in two weeks. "Very bad. Last year some jobs, this year very slow."

Carlo, who lives in Danbury, said that last year he was eating two or three regular meals a day. But now he doesn't have enough money to eat properly nor to buy the clothes he needs.

The experience of Encalada, Carlo and other day laborers at Kennedy Park is reflective of a wider trend around the country among immigrant workers.

A report released in October by the national Pew Hispanic Center said incomes declined sharply for non-citizen immigrant households in 2006-07 -- much more so than for the general population.

"The current economic slowdown has taken a far greater toll on non-citizen immigrants than it has on the United States population as a whole," Rakesh Kochhar, associate research director for the center, wrote.

Kochhar reports the median annual income of non-citizen immigrant households dropped 7.3 percent during 2006-07 while the annual income of all households in the U.S. went up during that time by 1.3 percent.

That national trend mirrors the experience of Kennedy Park day laborer Carlos Bronco. Though only 23 years old, Bronco said he's been a laborer for several years and this year "work so bad."

Three years ago, Bronco said, work was "easier" to get. "But now it's complicated because of economic downturn."

A change Bronco and other day laborers said they've seen recently is more Latino contractors. "Before gringos. Now Latinos," Bronco said.

Bronco prefers the "gringos" because they pay in cash whereas he said Latino contractors pay with checks that sometimes bounce.

"I have money in the bank," Bronco said. "Not enough for this winter. I want to pay bills."

He is willing to do all types of work from carpentry to painting to cleaning, he said.

One day laborer interviewed at Kennedy Park, however, said he hasn't seen much difference from last year. "Work is about same" as last year, Carlo Rivera said through a translator. His translator said that Rivera is a professional sheet rock taper who sometimes gets jobs that last two to three weeks.

And even though the day laborers who gathered around the contractor's van desperately wanted work, some still tried bargaining for a better deal, including a guaranteed base rate.

The Danbury area hasn't been hit as hard as other parts of Connecticut by the economic downturn, Danbury Economic Development Director Wayne Shepperd said. "It's a little slower to hit us."

According to the Connecticut state Department of Labor, unemployment in September in the city of Danbury was at 5 percent whereas is was 9.2 percent in Bridgeport and New Haven, 9.8 percent in Waterbury and 11.4 percent in Hartford.

In part, Shepperd attributes the better situation to the type of businesses in the Danbury area. "Our companies are very conservative in nature," he said, "not overstaffed but properly staffed with a lot of allegiance to their employees."

Even though Linens N' Things and Tweeter Etc. are closing by the end of the year, Shepperd said the stores are part of large chains and the decision to close may not have been based on the actual business the local operations were doing.

Shepperd, however, expects the economic crisis to hit harder here eventually. "Obviously it will happen. It's slowly working its way here."

Meanwhile, Winston Hudson, the specialty home building contractor in the white van who came to Kennedy Park for a couple of workers, said business is good for him. "If they're good, I'll keep them working," he said of the day laborers who went with him. "I have plenty of work."

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11102612