Job center finds a short-term home

OCC hosts the private group taking over for city’s shuttered center, but lease ends when classes start in late Jan.Day laborers who used Costa Mesa’s Job Center have a new place to look for work, though it’s not permanent.

The Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities opened Monday in a trailer at Orange Coast College. The center is paying the school $25 a day in rent. A group of business, church and community leaders are behind the privately-run center, which is not affiliated with the city.

At the moment, it looks a lot like the old Job Center, which the city operated at 17th Street and Placentia Avenue. That center was opened in 1988 and closed Dec. 31 by order of the City Council.

On its first day, the new center registered about 15 workers, said Crissy Brooks, executive director of Mika Community Development Corp. Brooks is helping to operate the new center.

Much like the city’s Job Center, workers arrive and register by showing some sort of ID -- a Social Security card, driver’s license or green card, for example. They’re signed up on a first-come, first-served basis, and they sit outside the center’s office in chairs to await jobs.

Laborers pay a $10 fee the first time they register and $1 each day they use the center. Contractors are being asked to pay a flat fee of $10 each time they pick up workers.

The money is important because the center is nonprofit and needs to be self-sufficient, Brooks said. Some workers also provided financial help -- about 170 laborers donated a total of $2,000 toward center operations.

“I think that just says a lot about their vision for a new place and how seriously they take it,” Brooks said. “It’s their livelihood.”

The center will operate at OCC through Jan. 27, because classes resume Jan. 30. Employment center operators are still searching for a permanent facility.

The temporary site came about when someone with the private labor center group called OCC to see if space was available, said Doug Bennett, the college’s director of institutional advancement. The school regularly rents out space not used for classes to various organizations -- for example, a small church rents a lecture hall for Sunday services, and motorcycle training courses are held in a parking lot on weekends.

Bennett said OCC officials had a few concerns about the controversy that has surrounded day labor centers in recent months, “but we didn’t see it as a major issue.” The center likely won’t make a permanent home at OCC, he said, because there isn’t room, given the number of students and amount of traffic on campus when school is in session.

In the meantime, Brooks is hoping to get the word out to contractors about the new location.

“I was kind of concerned because it was temporary and people might not know where it is,” said Christopher Otis, who was looking for a job Monday. “I’ll be more excited when they get their regular place.”

Anti-labor center protesters have been ramping up their activities lately, holding demonstrations around the nation last weekend. But Brooks said she’s not worried about whether they’ll come to OCC.

“I think that as long as there are people who need workers and there are workers willing to work, it’s going to serve the community,” she said.

“People have a right to speak out against that, but I’m confident that the good that it does will overpower whatever opposition they may have.”

On Monday, the center’s first day, one worker got hired.

“We all cheered,” Brooks said.

Laborers and contractors who want information about the Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities can call (949) 764-1528.

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* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson@latimes.com.