Site aims to manage day laborers

PORTLAND – A new hiring site in Portland intended largely for Hispanic day laborers opened to slow business Monday, but organizers said it may take time to change the habits of men who had been flagging down vehicles from curbsides for years to solicit work.

The city-financed operation is run by VOZ, an immigrant advocacy group, and is roughly patterned after about 60 other sites around the nation.

About 50 workers were at the site at midmorning Monday, but Francisco Aguirre of VOZ said a count was difficult because many came and went.

“We expected a slow first day,” he said. “The employers and some of the workers seemed intimidated by all the TV trucks.”

“It will take a few days to get adapted. After 10 years working off the streets, it’s tough to change everything in one day,”’ VOZ organizer Ignacio Paramo said.

He and others said there will be a better idea of the center’s success in a few weeks when things settle down.

A few drive-by employers hired roofers, yard workers and excavators Monday, filling out a form with their contact information, the job description and pay rate.

The fenced lot and trailer headquarters were peppered with signs enticing workers and employers to use the site.

A handful of workers still waited on the usual corners, but they numbered fewer than usual.

“We still don’t know what it will be,” said Elias Mateo, 41, who has been working the corner for four years and waited there for a job offer on Monday.

There have been no immigration raids on the “corner” for years and Portland Police are instructed not to detain people because of possible immigration issues alone.

Some similar centers around the country have fared better than others, and Paramo said one in Cornelius, in Washington County, disbanded when it lost its funding.

“The workers are back on the street there,” he said.

The hiring site, leased to VOZ by the Portland Development Commission for $1 a year, has a trailer headquarters, portable toilets and other facilities.

The Portland City Council approved $200,000 to finance the project’s first two years, angering some who said public funds should not be spent on a population that may be largely undocumented.

Nationally, the attitude generally has been that it is better to manage a situation that won’t go away, and will probably grow, than to let it run unchecked.