POOR needs your help. For subscription/donation info. click here

Photo by tiny
Francisco Herrera on
Ceaser Chavez st.

"All that is left to do is find another building"

Day Laborers, Neighbors, and Community Leaders Lose Site on Cesar Chavez St.

by Joseph Bolden

This Thursday, day laborers, neighbors, and community leaders will held a press conference and rally in support of the San Francisco Day Laborer's intended move to Cesar Chavez Street. Supporters of the program's relocation intend to convey two main messages: 1) that the majority of neighbors support the move, and 2) that the Mayor's delay in approving the original site, 3250 Cesar

Chavez, has caused the building to be leased to another tenant and has left the day laborers looking for another building.

(top of article)

Recently, the San Francisco Day Program, currently housed in small portable trailers, without running water or heat, identified the building at 3250 Cesar Chavez as an ideal site for its program. The building had been available for lease for the past several months. The Day Labor Program has looked for a site for approximately 10 years in order to best serve the hundreds of workers who stand on Caesar Chavez street waiting for work. Workers, neighbors and advocates agree that the new site for the Day Labor Program must be located on Cesar Chavez Street in order to maximize services to the workers and accessibility for the employers and the neighbors.

Despite the current setback and the controversy it has created among some neighbors, the San Francisco Day Labor Program intends to continue to look for a building around the Cesar Chavez Street corridor. "By collecting neighbor and community support, and by educating the general public about the day laborers, we have laid the groundwork to move our program to where most of the workers and employers are. All that is left to do is to find another building," says Hector Valdez, a day laborer and a volunteer with the San Francisco Day Labor Program.

(top of page)

THERAPY COSTS TOO MUCH!!!!
Dee Gray, M.S.W., M.F.C.   Licensed Therapist specializing in advocacy and crisis counseling. Mother, daughter and family counseling. Adoption and juvenile dependency. Literary and creative art counseling. Individual and group therapy. Sliding scale fee. (415) 541-5629.