Thread: Day Laborer Move Sought

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3290268
Aug. 1, 2005, 12:43AM

Day laborer move sought
Minuteman plan brings attention to the job markets on street corners
By EDWARD HEGSTROM

With observers planning to focus critical attention on Houston's immigrant day laborers, advocates are scrambling to organize the men who gather on street corners throughout Houston.

A newly reopened day labor center in the Second Ward has drawn some, but not all, workers off nearby corners, and a volunteer working with the city has proposed a comprehensive solution to the problem.

Attention has increased since the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps announced that it will begin observing Houston street-corner job markets beginning in October.

A regular police community meeting near Shepherd and Washington last week drew more than 70 residents and business owners, including many who expressed frustration with day laborers.

The problem "is way worse than it was three or four years ago," said Michael Tones, the vice president of New Plan Excel Realty Trust, which owns a shopping center in the area. Tones said customers are frightened by the men loitering along Shepherd near 11th Street.

Juan Alvarez, an activist working to organize the day laborers in that area, asked homeowners to be compassionate.

"I know it is a problem for most of you, but on the other side they are human beings, too," Alvarez said.

He maintained that a crackdown at the sites could force the laborers out of work and into crime.

Away from neighborhoods

Police officers at the meeting mentioned a move to find a center for the laborers, preferably in an industrial area where neighbors and businesses would not be disrupted.

At a separate meeting, Joe Rubio, a representative of Catholic Charities who also heads the Mayor's Office on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, introduced a proposal to place a day labor center in each quadrant of the city. The centers would be located away from residential neighborhoods, and would offer language classes and other education.

Rubio estimates that each center would cost a "minimum" of $150,000 a year. Councilman Gordon Quan said he doubted the council would provide $600,000 to fund the four sites, but Rubio and others said private funding could help offset the costs.

In the East End, a day labor center has reopened using $90,000 from the city, $50,000 from Bank of America and volunteer work from representatives of Exxon Mobil Corp.

On Friday morning, about 20 workers sat around and outside the center on Sampson and Commerce looking for work. By 8 a.m., 12 had succeeded.

Francisco Deras, operator of the site, said he was generally encouraged by its progress, and that he has registered more than 150 neighborhood workers.

He added, however, that change will be slow. Before the center opened, many of the day laborers would drink in public. He is working to cut down on the drinking, but conceded that some workers still drink outside.

"I tell them to drink at home," he said. "I tell them: If you don't respect me, at least respect the place."

Corner preferred

Deras hopes to get most of the workers from the area to come to the center, but some still prefer to wait for work on nearby corners. A block away, day laborers were still sitting on the corner of Canal and Sampson, where they said they are more likely to get work.

"There at the center, they don't have any contacts with contractors," said one of the men, Alejandro. But he and others have heard that the center might start issuing I.D. cards, and he said he has considered going to the center if he could get identification.

edward.hegstrom@chron.com

OMG butterbean

This one will be a good one to slam in my congressman's face in front of the public. Just after they signed the energy bill, that is giving the oil companies billions.