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Why Close the Day Laborer Hiring Site in Huntington Station?

Posted May 6, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Suffolk

On Tuesday, the Huntington Town Board announced that it would close a day labor hiring site on Depot Road in Huntington Station, citing the economic climate and a declining number of laborers using the facility.

Newsday’s Deborah S. Morris reported on the decision:

The Huntington Town Board said Tuesday it will close the much-debated day labor hiring site in Huntington Station in June when its contract with the site’s operator, the Family Service League, expires.

Family Service, which has run the site the past three years, was notified by fax Tuesday. The site was established 12 years ago on a privately owned half-acre parcel at Third Street and Depot Road.

“It has become abundantly clear that the site, which was created in response to community suggestions more than a decade ago, is no longer serving its purpose,” Supervisor Frank Petrone said.

Although the closure came as a surprise to immigrant advocates, who said that the decision seemed ill advised, Councilman Mark Mayoka had publicly announced his desire to close the site at a community meeting on April 28.

The fate of the hiring site was discussed at that meeting—which Mayoka organized and referred to as a “community crisis planning” session—and at other community meetings, according to a blog post by Kelly Campbell of Huntington Patch.

But when residents broached the topic of the hiring site at those meetings, the focus was on loitering and crime issues, versus the economic impetus later offered by the town.

From Huntington Patch:

At the April 28 meeting, a local shop owner asked why the day-laborer hiring site was kept open and said that her business has been affected adversely because so many people hanging around scares customers.

In recent weeks many business owners in Huntington Station have advocated for the close of the site but the Town Board didn’t offer comment on it. Residents and parents of students who attend nearby Jack Abrams Intermediate School seem to think it adds to the potential crime and violence that plague their children following two shootings in the area and many also demanded it be closed.

So a hiring site—which gives day laborers a central place to convene for work, away from traffic and storefront businesses—is being blamed for loitering and crime?

That doesn’t make any sense.

Although town officials say that they wanted to close the site for reasons of cost and effectiveness, the opinions of some clamoring, if misguided, residents clearly played a part in the decision.

A business owner has a problem with loitering. So she wants to close a facility that helps draw laborers away from the street?

Parents at Jack Abrams Intermediate School are worried about crime. So some of them ask to shut down a place largely populated by hardworking immigrants?

I visited Jack Abrams school during dismissal time today, and interviewed some parents and residents about crime fears in the area.

In addition to concerns related to the hiring site, parents at the school have recently proposed moving Jack Abrams to a different location because of crime issues, specifically two instances of gun fire in the area over the past year.

I asked Angel Gonzalez—a 39-year-old catering employee whose son is in the fourth grade at the school—whether he thought area crime was related to the hiring site.

“[The site] is another matter,” Gonzalez said. “Because everyone that’s in there, they’re not involved with gangs, they’re just trying to make a living to help their family.”

Gonzalez, who lives across the street from the school, thought that the parents who were worried about crime didn’t know the area well. “A lot of people complaining are people who don’t live in the neighborhood,” he said. “The cops are doing their job.”

Another parent, Renee Wright, said that she has safety concerns in the neighborhood—she also lives near the school—but that those concerns don’t have anything to do with day laborers.

“Those are people that actually want to make a living,” Wright said. “People that are causing problems aren’t trying to make a living.” Or they’re making a living through crime, she added.

In addition, I interviewed a few Huntington Station day laborers earlier in the day.

Everyone I interviewed agreed that most laborers—either at the hiring site or on the street—were looking for work, which has grown more scarce in the past few years.

By the time I reached the site around 10:30am, there were only about a dozen men there. The busiest times at the site are between 6-8am, and the facility closes its doors at 11:30am each day.

I spoke with Mario Honorato, a 36-year-old construction worker who said that 90 percent of the people at the site are looking for employment.

“There’s no crime here,” Honorato said. “This is our space where we’re allowed to find work.”

Javier Mendoza, the site coordinator, estimated that as of late, as many as 60 people per day have been using the facility. While the number of laborers used to be as high as 180, he said, the site is still used by dozens of people every day.

With the struggling economy, some laborers choose to look for work in less competitive locations outside of the site.

“It’s survival of the fittest right now,” Mendoza said.

According to 2008 figures from the town, the latest available, the hiring site provides a service to a range of 60-180 laborers per day. Once the facility is closed, those laborers will be consigned to the street.

The Town of Huntington also has a “Standing While Latino” ordinance, which means that officers can issue fines to day laborers who are seeking work on the street. Several laborers told me that police sometimes issue fines to laborers waiting for work (whether those fines are for soliciting work or loitering was unclear).

Driving to the site, I saw a group of Latino men standing on a corner along Depot Road. A police car drove in their direction and the men instantly scrambled in a few different directions.

I stopped my car and asked a few of the men, who were laborers, why they had moved to a different spot only a few blocks away. They said it was because they didn’t want to risk getting a fine.

Is this the solution that the town board envisioned? Take away the hiring site, and then hassle day laborers for soliciting work on street corners?

I also called several town elected officials today, including Supervisor Petrone and Councilman Mayako, but neither returned my call. A representative from Family Service League left me a voicemail in the late afternoon, but I was already working on this story.

Next week, I hope to hear from those people, as well as some other local leaders, and post another update then.

Tags : day laborer, huntington, huntington station, mayoka, standing while latino

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