Encinitas Says It Can’t Afford Hiring Hall : Employment: City blames economy and seeks donations from community to keep employment center alive. Migrant adovcates say Encinitas was never behind the hall.

Driven by a sagging economy, the city of Encinitas says it will close its beleaguered hiring hall--the first service of its kind in the county--unless it receives some help from the community to keep it in operation.

The job center, opened in November, 1989, as a way to provide jobs for the hundreds of often-homeless migrant workers and others who live in the city, had seen a falling-off in recent months in its matching of jobless workers with needy employers.

Migrant advocates criticized the plan to shut down the center, saying that, when times get tough, it is projects aimed at the poor and homeless that are the first to go.

This week, the City Council voted against a $58,000 funding request by Operation SER, a nonprofit group that wants to take over operation of the hall--actually a movable trailer delivered each day to a vacant lot in the far northeast corner of the city, on El Camino Real near Olivenhain Road.

The Oceanside-based Operation SER, an organization that runs training-development programs, including the Carlsbad hiring hall, had proposed that Encinitas fund the hall during 1992 while it sought alternative funding.

But the city voted against the plan. Some council members blamed a sagging economy. Other council members said it is not the city’s job to pay for some sweeping social service projects.

Instead, the city is asking for philanthropic help from the community--in the form of volunteers workers, cash donations and the like--to keep the hall afloat. Or, officials say, they will accept state or county assistance.

“Frankly, we’re having some pretty bad budget problems,” Encinitas Mayor Maura Wiegand said. “Restaurants and stores are closing all over town. And the hiring hall is really a business. Sure, there’s a social situation that we’re trying to address with the hall.

“That’s why we’re trying to look for someone to come in and take it over, even part time. Of course, that means they might have to scale it back for a while.”

George Lopez, president of SER, said Friday that he expected the city’s thumbs-down on the funding request. “It’s the economy, it’s so bad,” he said. “And there’s no guarantee that we’d be able to locate the funds.”

He said that SER will immediately attempt to locate money from foundations as well as community block grants from cities.

Lopez said he was disappointed in the city’s decision to hand over the hall to the nonprofit group without helping to pitch in to see that the service was kept alive.

“But it’s not just the responsibility of the city of Encinitas,” he said. “There are a lot of local communities like San Marcos, Escondido and Solana Beach that have residents in need of this type of assistance.”

Migrant advocates say the city has never maintained a full-hearted effort to make the project work.

“This doesn’t surprise me. It simply shows where their priorities are,” said Rafael Martinez, executive director of the Encinitas-based North County Chaplaincy, which for years has provided homeless migrant workers such services as English lessons, food and shelter.

“The irony of the whole situation is that this hiring hall is the only thing the city of Encinitas has ever done to assist migrant workers and Hispanics in their community. They don’t want to provide housing or any kinds of programs, nothing.

“The only reason they started the hall in the first place was to solve their own social problem--to get rid of the people who were standing on their street corners looking for work. And, when that project failed, this project is the first to go.”

Martinez also criticized the city for “wasting” tens of thousands of dollars in insisting on running the center itself the past two years instead of leaving it to experienced groups that could make better use of the money.

“In the end, no one was finding work there anyway,” he said. “We provide more jobs to workers right here from our tiny offices. And it doesn’t cost us any money to do it.”

He told of a worker who had come to his offices off Santa Fe Drive this week in search of work. “He said he had gone to that hall for several days without luck. And so that morning he got there first. He was No. 1, he said, and he still didn’t get a job for the day.”

Encinitas officials acknowledged that the success of the hiring hall had fallen off. In recent weeks, 15 to 20 people a day were placed with jobs through the center, they said.

Lynn Brown, a housing and grants coordinator for the city, said the response to the city’s appeal will test just how much the community wants the job center to keep going.

“If people are really concerned,” she said, “they’ll find a way to give.”