Waiting, hoping, waiting

Elia Powers

The two men lean back, almost in unison, one against an exterior wall

and the other against a battered wire fence.

They have found shade in a hidden nook of this nondescript lot,

and they’re puffing on cigarettes and wisecracking like old pals.

They aren’t old pals. Their newly formed friendship is founded on

mutual feelings of uncertainty.

When short of rent money, each man has slept on the street, has

shared a motel room, and has spent nights at a nearby shelter that

fed them, provided them with mats and escorted them out the door at

5:30 a.m.

“We would be kicked out so early that we’d have nowhere else to go

to sleep but here,” said Victor Montgomery, pointing to a row of blue

benches that sit outside the Costa Mesa Job Center. “When we woke up

again, there would be a line that wrapped around the block. It looked

like they were giving away concert tickets.”

For 17 years, the center has provided a place for day laborers to

seek temporary employment from contractors who need immediate help.

Montgomery, 37, and 48-year-old Anthony St.Onge rarely arrive at

the Job Center at dawn anymore. Each has a full-time residence, and

they aren’t forced to the streets in the morning.

On this June morning, neither has a prearranged work assignment.

So, together they wait outside the Job Center as potential employees:

Nos. 81 and 88 -- numbers that correspond to their order of arrival.

The center opens at 6 a.m. six days a week. Montgomery has at

least a 20-minute ride from his home in Anaheim.

He has logged hours at steady minimum-wage jobs in the past, but

prefers to take his chances here.

“I like this place,” he said. “I don’t care where it is, as long

as it stays open.”

St.Onge knows the center is on shaky ground. He keeps track of the

controversy that began when the Costa Mesa City Council voted, 3-2,

in March to shut down the publicly subsidized facility.

Closing dates have twice been pushed back -- the latest decision

giving an outside party until the end of the year to relocate the

center and take its operations and funding out of the city’s hands.

“I figured it was going to happen sometime,” St.Onge said. “This

time, the council seemed to be adamant. What I don’t understand is

the reasoning. The public should want the Job Center here. They don’t

want people hanging out in alleys and on corners.”

That’s the prevailing argument coming from Job Center supporters,

who have protested at council meetings and who have begun to float

alternate plans.

Some who back the council’s decision agree with the center’s

mission in theory, but don’t think it’s the city’s responsibility to

foot the bill. Others criticize the center for abetting people they

call illegal immigrants and who they say don’t pay taxes.

In the last fiscal year, the city spent $102,967 to run the Job

Center, which is staffed by two part-time employees of the parks and

recreation department.

A city report showed an average of 110 people visit the center

each day, and about 34 of those find jobs.

‘LIVING IN LIMBO’

St.Onge doesn’t mind those odds.

At times, he is so hard-pressed for cash that he can’t afford a

meal or make a full rent payment. But the money is regular enough

that he is able to keep his spot in a five-person Costa Mesa house.

St.Onge, a brawny man with messy blond hair and dirt-encrusted

jeans, credits his relative stability to work found through the Job

Center.

That’s why the recent news has him so concerned.

“If I can’t pay rent, I’ll have no options,” St.Onge said as he

held up his plastic, numbered card that identifies him as a job

seeker. “A lot of us, we’re living in limbo right now. If they close

the place down, I’ll be back on the street.”

St.Onge doesn’t want a repeat of his recent history: He had been

homeless off and on for 14 years.

He doesn’t want a reprise of the last two decades, when he bounced

from city to city in an unsuccessful effort to find steady work.

His career as a pamphleteer was short-lived, as was a stint as a

construction worker. Kitchen work didn’t pay enough, he said.

Many of the jobs he wanted required skills he didn’t have. Many of

the jobs he could get involved routines he didn’t want.

So he would settle for part-time work, grow accustomed to layoffs

and live from paycheck to paycheck.

His parents died within 10 years of each other, and in 2000,

St.Onge moved to Orange County without a full-time job.

In 2001, he found Labor Ready, a private firm that places

temporary workers. The next year he discovered the Job Center.

The walk from his home to the corner of Placentia Avenue and West

17th Street takes about 20 minutes. Once there, he can wait for hours

to be hired.

In the morning, there is always hope. There is always the

possibility that the next job could last for months or even become a

full-time gig.

It’s a good sign, St.Onge and Montgomery say, if one person

doesn’t show up to the center for a few consecutive days. That likely

means he has found regular work.

“You have to hang in there,” St.Onge said. “It’s bound to happen.”

AN OPEN MARKET

For job seekers, patience is imperative. It can be hours between

employer visits, though most often it’s a shorter wait.

The outdoor commons, filled with boisterous conversation for most

of the morning, falls silent when an employer drives onto the lot.

No one can speak while the contractor makes his selection.

Job seekers hold their cards high in the air and strain to make

eye contact with contractors. Some workers vie for a place closest to

the car in an attempt to be the first spotted. Others, such as

St.Onge and Montgomery, stand in the background.

At the Job Center, those who arrive earliest often are rewarded

with work. Still, there is no assurance of that outcome. Workers with

low numbers can be passed over if an employer feels another person

has skills that better match his task.

It’s 8:45 a.m. when a job offer is announced. A contractor needs

four workers to help with an $8-an-hour yard-landscaping project.

He plucks the next four people in line. St.Onge and Montgomery are

out of luck. They return to their position near the edge of the lot.

Another employer arrives within 10 minutes, but this job involves

deck finishing, a task at which St.Onge has little experience.

“It’s a crapshoot,” said St.Onge, somewhat despondent as he

returns to his conversation with Montgomery. “I’ve gone nine days

without finding work, and I’ve been asked on multiple jobs in one

day.”

After 90 minutes of waiting, St.Onge is summoned into the main

office, where a familiar face awaits. It’s Ken Phelps, a retired

Newport Beach resident who had hired St.Onge about a week earlier.

Phelps has picked up laborers from street corners but said he

prefers the Job Center’s setup.

“I appreciate the package I get here,” he said. “If I go to

another place, I don’t know who I’m getting. People here want to

help. I get feedback on them and can find someone I relate to.”

St.Onge and Job Center regular Dennis Haifley are whisked off to

Newport Beach for a daylong project, where they move furniture and

heavy items out of Phelps’ home.

The workers are paid $8 an hour for about eight hours of work.

St.Onge said he can make $500 in a good week.

Construction projects are the most common tasks. Moving furniture

and helping with plumbing is often the most lucrative, he said.

WORKING THEIR WAY UP

St.Onge has left for the day, but Montgomery remains at the Job

Center, stationed under an umbrella where he is taking another drag

from his cigarette.

Tan with spiky black hair and stylish sunglasses, Montgomery is

known to slip into Spanish when speaking to Latino day laborers. And

while he waits for employers to arrive, he said he sometimes likes to

tutor his friends in English.

His buoyant personality comes across in casual conversation, but

his expression changes when the topic of a possible Job Center

closure arises.

“If they close this thing down, it’s going to hurt a lot of

people,” Montgomery said.

Himself included.

Like St.Onge, Mongtomery’s pre-Job Center employment history was

spotty. He has found better luck with temporary work.

Costa Mesa resident Juan Fernandez has relied on the Job Center

for work during much of the last 10 years.

He left his hometown of Mexico City in 1993 and moved to Southern

California, looking to earn enough money to support himself and his

family in Mexico.

“It’s hard where I come from. Here I have options,” Fernandez

said.

He arrives at the Job Center every morning before 6 a.m.

Fernandez, 44, said he makes enough money to contribute to a

$1,200-a-month rent check. On holidays, he tries to send $200 to his

relatives in Mexico City.

Through a class at Orange Coast College, Fernandez is learning

English. That, he said, is one of his greatest assets.

“The trouble with many people is communicating [with employers],”

Fernandez said. “If you don’t speak English, you have no chance,”

Fernandez said he has options if the Job Center closes; his church

has offered to help him find work.

In the last two months, Fernandez has been a regular at City

Council meetings. He said it’s upsetting that the center could be in

jeopardy.

“It’s a big decision,” he said. “This place has been good to me. I

worry about the future if people don’t have money for food or aren’t

able to take care of their children.”

It’s 10 a.m., and neither Fernandez nor Montgomery has found work.

Empty chairs are scattered throughout the lot. Montgomery reclines

in one chair and rests his foot on another. He doesn’t seem

concerned.

“I made $80 yesterday and didn’t burn it all yet,” he said,

jokingly.

To St.Onge and Fernandez, that’s a serious matter. Both said they

are bothered by misconceptions of laborers who find work at the Job

Center.

“I’ve had a contractor tell me that because I’m here, I must

either be a doper or a bum,” St.Onge said. “Those people don’t come

here. If we were lazy, we wouldn’t be here.”