Day Laborers Get New Hiring Site

Laborer Juan Sinaloa is among the dozens of men who gather daily on a corner in the Old Towne section of Thousand Oaks looking for work.

“You can find a job here if you’re a good worker,” said Sinaloa, 25, who has come to this spot for the past year to pick up general construction jobs.

But neighbors prefer that Sinaloa and other laborers find another spot to seek employment. They say the crowds that gather at Fairview Road and Crescent Way are a nuisance and block traffic.

Bowing to their complaints, the Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday approved spending up to $50,000 to establish a job-hiring site about two blocks south, along Royal Oaks Drive next to the Ventura Freeway.

Plans call for improved landscaping, picnic tables, bike racks, a portable toilet and a circular driveway so contractors and other prospective employers don’t slow traffic when they stop to pick up workers.

“It’s a good decision to move there,” said Sinaloa, who makes about $80 a day and has worked steady this month to help remodel a home in Newbury Park.

‘This Is Not a Band-Aid Solution’

Assistant City Manager Scott Mitnick said the city studied the day-laborer situation for nearly 18 months and analyzed 14 possible sites to relocate the workers from the intersection where they have congregated since the mid-1980s.

“This is not a Band-Aid solution, it’s a long-term solution,” said Mitnick, adding that improvements at the new job site should be completed by July. “Our goal is to resolve this neighborhood situation.”

As part of its review, Thousand Oaks hired City Impact, a nonprofit family counseling and youth mentoring agency in Oxnard, to survey the mostly male laborers.

The survey showed 78% of the laborers are under age 35, 46% are married, 93% are local residents and nearly all would be willing to move to a more suitable site.

Mitnick said the city will ensure the refurbished site is maintained, trash is picked up regularly and that police monitor any possible traffic congestion.

“It will be a site that the community will be proud of,” he said.

But neighbors such as 81-year-old Gerda Miller, whose three-bedroom home overlooks the greenbelt where the new jobs site will be built, aren’t convinced.

“I don’t care how nice they think they’re going to make it, it’s going to be a mess,” said the retired bird breeder who has lived on Royal Oaks Drive for nearly three decades.

She said there have already been problems with transients sleeping in a culvert between the greenbelt and the freeway, and that moving day laborers to the area won’t help.

“I don’t have anything against these men,” she said.

“We have them pretty close. I don’t think we should have them any closer.”

Carpenter Says Laborers Respect the Merchants

Although laborers gather across the street from the rear exit of the dental office she manages, Valerie Emerson said they don’t cause trouble.

“I’ve never had a problem with them at all,” she said. “They’re out there trying to find a job. They’re not out there to loiter.”

Carpenter Antonio Romero, who has come to the corner since 1995, said the laborers respect the merchants and residents and would rather not tie up the intersection while seeking a day’s work.

Mitnick expects the greenbelt to eliminate most traffic concerns and said City Impact will be hired to educate laborers and employers on using the new site.