SF Day Laborer Update

(1) UPDATE

As you've probably heard, Mayor Newsom plans to set up a second day laborer
site on Bayshore Ave., near the location where Home Depot will open a store.
Ed Lee, the City Administrator is spearheading the effort. Recently, we met
with Ed Lee and Wade Crowfoot, from the Mayor's Office. We had not been
contacted prior to this meeting. They stated:

--The City is setting up this new site "in response to the problems of the
overcrowded streets and corners, particularly along the residential blocks
off Cesar Chavez."
--The City has leased property at Bayshore and Waterloo.
--"Home Depot has not been involved with our plans to establish this
additional Workers Center, although their representatives have been notified
of our intent to establish such a Center..."
--"The current day laborer program along Cesar Chavez will continue
uninterrupted. The Bayshore Center will be an additional center, and is not
meant to substitute for any program currently in place."
--"Day laborers will not be forcibly removed from the Chavez corridor nor
prohibited from seeking work in their current locaiton.

The Mayor's Office continues to exclude La Raza Centro Legal/SF Day Labor
Program from this process. For example, when we attempted to participate in
a meeting recently with day laborers, convened by Ed Lee and Miguel Bustos,
from the Mayor's Office, we were told that staff and members of the Day
Labor Program were not welcome.

Furthermore, several workers who stand on corners along 26th St. have told
us that City representatives stated to them that vans would be sent out from
the Bayshore site, and that workers on these corners would be ticketed by
police.

We don't know when the City plans to open this new center.

(2) LA RAZA CENTRO LEGAL'S / SF DAY LABOR PROGRAM'S POSITION

We support the creation of new centers that will genuinely address the needs
of the day laborer community. However, we cannot support a new center used
to justify removing the workers from public street corners. Day laborers
have a constitutional right, as well as a moral one, to decide for
themselves whether to find work through a day laborer center or from a
street corner. The workers are members of our neighborhoods, and they
should not be moved or ticketed because "nimby" neighbors don't want them
around.

If the City is intent on funding a new center near the new Home Depot, then
La Raza Centro Legal must run it. Home Depot has a national repution for
criminalizing day laborers who stand in front of its stores. Day laborers
on Bayshore must be able to organize around this and other issues, like the
Cesar Chavez St. workers have. This can only happen if La Raza runs the new
center.

San Francisco day laborers are currently partnering with other
community-based organizations and trying to acquire the property on Cesar
Chavez St., where Kellymoore used to be, to build a bigger and better hiring
hall. That, along with the right to stand on the corners, is the workers'
#1 priority.

(3) HOW YOU CAN HELP!

--ALLY MEETING, TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 11-1, 474 VALENCIA, 2ND FL. AUDITORIUM.
We are bringing our community partners and allies together so that we may
brainstorm and strategize collectively around this. We need you!

--PLANNING COMMISSION HEARING, THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1 PM, 2ND FL. CITY HALL.
The Day Labor Program will be mobilizing with MAC, Bernal Heights
Neighborhood Center, and other community partners to tell the Planning
Commission that the neighborhood prefers low-income housing and space for
the SF Day Labor Program, not luxury condos and a Walgreen's. We need your
voice!

--SEND A LETTER TO THE MAYOR! Let him know that the SF Day Labor Program
should run the new site. See sample letter attached. Please cc Renee
Saucedo.

--DOOR-TO-DOOR SIGNATURE GATHERING, SATURDAY, APRIL 21, MEET AT 9 AM FOR
ORIENTATION, 3358 CESAR CHAVEZ ST. Day laborers and volunteers will canvass
the Cesar Chavez St. neighborhood asking residents to sign our petition.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!

Renee Saucedo
Community Empowerment Coordinator
renee [at] lrcl.org
(415) 553-3404