Laboring over Home Depot

Andrew Glazer

SANTA ANA -- Nearly 20 men stood in clusters along the small road leading

to Home Depot on Tuesday morning.

Wearing sweatshirts and jeans, they waved at passing trucks, hoping to be

picked up for a day of landscaping, construction or housecleaning for $50

to $80. They said on weekends, there are as many as 100 other men looking

for a day’s work.

A new Home Depot store is scheduled to open in the revamped Harbor Center

in early January, and Costa Mesa council members are already concerned

about a similar scene being created here.

It is illegal to hire laborers seeking work in public areas in Costa Mesa

-- a city that has struggled with the day laborer issue for more than a

decade.”The Santa Ana Home Depot has a real problem,” Councilman Joe

Erickson said last week. “People hang out in the street and run into

traffic. That’s not going to happen here.”

In an attempt to ensure that, the council voted Monday to keep its Job

Center on Placentia Avenue open for eight hours a day, seven days a week,

starting when the Costa Mesa Home Depot opens its doors.

The Job Center is currently open for only five hours a day and is closed

on Sundays. It will cost the city about $16,000 to expand the hours for

the rest of the fiscal year, City Manager Allan Roeder said.

The council asked the hardware superstore to chip in for the extended

hours. In a letter it sent to the city in November, Home Depot said it

was in favor of keeping the Job Center open longer each day. But the

store said it wouldn’t pay.

“We will be generating up to $400,000 in sales tax in our first year of

business,” said Jeff Nichols, Home Depot’s director of real estate for

its stores in the Western U.S. “We don’t agree with the city that we’re

not helping fund community programs. $400,000 goes a long way to funding

day labor centers, police and anything else.”

Nichols said Home Depot fulfilled its day labor responsibilities by

hiring a consultant to examine the issue.

Lynn Svensson, the day labor consultant, said she recommended the store

hire a full-time bilingual employee at its Costa Mesa store to refer day

laborers to the Job Center.

“Usually when stores open, there’s a danger it might turn into a

hangout,” Svensson said. “We’re trying to make sure it doesn’t become a

habit. With an aggressive program, you can head it off before it starts.”

Svensson also said the Costa Mesa Home Depot would run a video inside the

store, informing laborers and employers about the Job Center.

But Erickson said Home Depot still isn’t being the best neighbor it can

be.

“They collect the sales tax, but we, the shoppers, pay it,” he said. “I

really hope they change their minds and step up, or they’ll really be

letting us down.”

Erickson convinced the council on Monday to schedule meetings with the

company in January to deal with the complicated day laborer issue.Some of

the workers standing outside the Santa Ana Home Depot said they

appreciated the city’s efforts to find a place for them to go. But they

said they’ll keep looking for work at the Santa Ana Home Depot and

possibly the new Costa Mesa location as well.

They said the Job Center, where workers are picked from a lottery each

morning, undermines an elaborate system they have established.

A group of eight men, mostly in their 20s, said they organized a team

where each member has a trade specialty.

“There is no competition,” Enrique, who refused to give his last name,

said in Spanish. “The employer can come and choose who is good at what

they need. They know where to come.”

Enrique said the team cleans its area after each day and does not swarm

trucks entering the parking lot to look for work.

“We don’t want them calling the police,” said the 24-year-old from

Tlaxcala, Mexico. “Then we’d have to leave.”