Budget woes, recession challenge day-labor centers
PHOENIX (AP) – Until a day-labor center opened nearby, jobseekers in Keenan Strand’s north Phoenix neighborhood used to drink from people’s hoses, urinate on walls and duck behind bushes to escape triple-digit heat (temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius) while waiting for work.
But the economic downturn is threatening the 6-year-old day-labor center and others like it around the country, leaving some advocates concerned that job seekers will return to neighborhoods and street corners in search of work.
“We supported it because it brought order to the neighborhood,” said Strand, president of the neighborhood association. “Until the federal government does something about immigration, this was our neighborhood solution.”
Struggling to keep up with payments, the Macehuelli Work Center in Phoenix is searching for a buyer for the 2.2 acres (0.9 hectares) of land it owns. The economic crisis has forced officials to shelve a plan to build homes and office buildings that would fund the day-labor center in the future.
The center’s leader, Salvador Reza, is hoping to find a sympathetic buyer who will keep the center open. But if no one steps up, the center will close, he said.
Officials in Fort Worth, Texas, are also looking at closing a day-labor center. Hiring sites in Austin, Texas and Passaic, New Jersey, have already shut down this year.
In Austin, city officials closed one of two day-labor centers in March, saving more than $200,000 as they struggled to balance the budget.
David Lurie, the city’s health and human services director, said the center was open a little more than a year but wasn’t widely used. It opened amid a declining economy that zapped demand for temporary laborers.