Day Laborers Anger Residents, Merchants : Thousand Oaks: The Sheriff’s Department has received complaints about the men, who gather on street corners waiting for work. They say they don’t bother anybody.

Merchants and residents, who stopped a homeless center from opening in a rundown Thousand Oaks neighborhood, also have complained to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department about day laborers who gather on their streets.

Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Diaz said he has received four complaints in the past two weeks about the workers.

The men gather on a street corner in the area known as Old Town where construction or landscaping crews come by to offer them work. In the past, the workers were tolerated, but recently publicized problems between businesses and day laborers in Agoura Hills brought them to the attention of local merchants, Diaz said.

Merchants have complained that workers were sitting on planters and railings, Diaz said.

Business and home owners in the area last week defeated a plan by the Conejo Homeless Assistance Program to open a center for the homeless after arguing that services for transients would bring down their property values.

Shirani Dhawan stood outside her Montessori school on Crescent Way Monday about 50 yards from a group of workers waiting at the corner of Crescent and Fairview Road.

“The city should do something,” she said. “I have had people come and say: ‘We like you, we like your teachers, but we don’t like them ,’ ” she said, motioning to the 10 laborers across the street.

Dhawan said the group has grown at times to as many as 30. The mostly Latino men intimidate her and the parents who drop off their children, said Dhawan, who is from Sri Lanka.

The men also worry print shop owner Mary Wood, whose store is across the street.

“I have fears of staying here late at night,” Wood said. “It just seems like the city should be able to put something together, a place where they can be.”

Homeowner Dan Hammond, 32, said he has complained to authorities about laborers gathering on the street. At a neighborhood meeting last week, everyone mentioned the laborers, he said.

“My concern is, are there going to be more of them next week?” he said.

City leaders say they have never considered opening a job center where workers could gather because business owners never complained about day laborers before.

Similar problems have arisen in Oxnard, Moorpark and Ojai. And some Los Angeles County communities, including Agoura Hills, have ordered day laborers off their streets.

But the workers are facing a dilemma. They say they have found few spots where they are visible to passing motorists but stay out of the way of authorities.

In Thousand Oaks, day laborers say they congregate on Crescent Way because it is well-known to construction crews and landscapers. It is also close to bus lines.

Andres Becerra, 38, denied that he and others bother anyone.

Becerra lives in East Los Angeles but says he finds no work there, so he commutes to the suburbs. When he finds work, he makes up to $5 an hour, or about $40 a day.

“Work is scarce. There’s more possibility of work here,” Becerra said in Spanish as others stood around him. “Now they’re throwing us off the street.”

The workers said they scatter when police or immigration officials arrive. Sometimes motorists pull over to harass the workers.

“They say, ‘You’re Mexican, so get out of my country,’ ” Becerra said.

During a two-hour period Monday morning, only one motorist stopped but did not pick up a worker. About 10:30 a.m., the workers left for lunch or to find work elsewhere.

A neighbor, Mike Jones, 35, said he is friends with the workers and frequently shares food with them. None of the men bother residents or businesses, he said.

“It’s just some guys trying to find a fair day’s work,” Jones said. “They’re good people.”

But loitering and littering is clearly a concern to property owners. On a wall of a nearby shopping center a sign has been posted saying “No Loitering” in both Spanish and English.

The owner of a house where workers congregate was cited by the city in July for allowing trash to accumulate in the yard. On Monday, the yard and the street were clear of trash.

Worker Roberto Tapia, 36, who was living with five other laborers in a nearby house, said complaints from neighbors contributed to their being evicted.

Tapia and others who rent the house at 2964 Crescent Way were ordered to be out of the house today. They paid $700 a month to live in the one-bedroom dwelling that was once a garage.

The landlords “gave us an ultimatum that we have to go the first or the day after. We don’t have any place to go,” Tapia said. He said that if he moves away, he will still come to the street corner to find work.

“That’s all we can do,” he said. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”