Home Depot Store Chain Suggests Joining City in Day-Laborer Center

Popularity has had a down side for Home Depot. The chain’s booming home-improvement stores are magnets not just for do-it-yourself types and contractors but also for day laborers, who linger near the parking lots looking for work, to the annoyance of some nearby residents.

In fact, complaints about day laborers have become such a problem for Home Depot that the chain has suggested starting a formal day-laborer center in Van Nuys, jointly sponsored by the company and the city of Los Angeles.

The chain pitched the unusual idea as part of its plan to move from its cramped Van Nuys store at Balboa and Roscoe boulevards, according to city officials and Home Depot representatives.

The company wants to move to a new, larger site nearby at Woodley Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard, and has said it is considering setting aside a portion of the new site as a supervised meeting place for day laborers and prospective employers.

Such a center would help control the flourishing outdoor labor market flanking Home Depot’s stores, say some city officials who have lent the idea tentative support. “They are going to congregate in these areas anyway, so if they do it in an orderly manner, that’s better,” said Lisa Zeni, field deputy for City Councilman Joel Wachs.

The move might also help Home Depot defuse neighborhood opposition to its stores.

At least two proposed new stores in the San Fernando Valley have met resistance from local residents wary of the chain’s reputation for drawing day laborers.

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A proposal for a Granada Hills store died earlier this year--in part a victim of the day-laborer issue, said Phyllis Winger, planning deputy for City Councilman Hal Bernson.

Another store tentatively proposed for a site on Topanga Canyon Boulevard south of Victory Boulevard in Woodland Hills has already run afoul of similar concerns.

“It’s a problem for Home Depot,” said Zeni, the Wachs deputy. “There are currently anywhere from 100 to 200 men hanging out on Roscoe and Balboa on a daily basis.”

The day-laborer problem must be resolved before Wachs will support Home Depot’s plan for a new Van Nuys site, said Tom Henry, Wachs’ planning deputy.

Regarding the chain’s proposed day-laborer center, Henry said, “We are open to it,” provided local residents voice approval.

The idea is still “a work in progress,” cautioned Tom McCarty, a government relations consultant for Home Depot, who says other alternatives are also being developed by the chain.

But the city/Home Depot day-laborer center has emerged as one of the most compelling options on the table.

Such centers “are the only solution,” said Francisco Briones, coordinator of the city’s day-laborer program. “They are the only thing that works.”

Due in part to the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Home Depot has been especially prosperous locally. The Van Nuys store alone doubled its volume of sales in the year following the quake, Home Depot real-estate manager Greg George said.

But the quake also swelled the numbers of would-be laborers, George said. Although there is nothing illegal about groups of people gathering on sidewalks, and the chain can’t be held legally liable for the situation, political pressure on the store to take action has increased.

The company’s response--proposing a city-sponsored pickup point--is not a new idea.

For the past six years, the city has run two such centers, one in the Harbor area, and a second on Sherman Way in North Hollywood--both designed to lure laborers away from random street corners and into supervised meeting places.

But the Home Depot proposal is unique because it would represent a joint effort between a private company and government officials, Briones said.

“The main problem in opening a site is finding an empty lot with free rent,” he said. “They [Home Depot officials] are willing to put some of their property aside for a site. It makes it a lot easier.”

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The city’s day-laborer centers were started as a last-ditch effort to stop groups of men seeking work from gathering on sidewalks and street corners, waiting for employers to drive by and hire them.

Today, at the North Hollywood Day Laborer Program site, situated in a fenced yard owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, about 100 people now gather daily beneath high-tension power lines to wait for work, said Antonio Bernabe, the on-site coordinator.

But persuading Van Nuys residents to approve a similar center in their midst may be difficult.

“They will get resistance from Van Nuys homeowners if they are planning a day-labor site at any Home Depot in Van Nuys,” promised Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners’ Assn.