The Grim Financial Condition of the day Labourers is Going Unnoticed
The Grim Financial Condition of the day Labourers is Going Unnoticed
As the shadows of the recession leave behind a trail the grim financial condition of the day labourers is going unnoticed unmentioned in the hype about remedies and policy making.
When the landlord kicked out Carlos Ruano he had only $50 in his pocket. He sent it to his family in Guatemala while he passed the night riding E train. His fellow workers have nicknamed it "hotel ambulante" or roving hotel. Since then he has been camping on the streets a sad condition who has been working for the last 6 years in Broadway on 69th Street.
Together with other workers like him he has passed the nights wherever they could emergency rooms of hospitals, unfinished houses abandoned by the developers, under the arch of bridges and along railway tracks that snake through western Queens. A stroll down the rail lines will expose unclean mattresses and working boots. They manage not to go hungry because of people offering them food said Ruano holding on to a cup containing soup being distributed by some Pentecostals to the workers near Woodside Avenue.
The workers are isolated living out one day to another an invisible lot who are victims of the recession but cannot be reached easily said advocates and officials of the city. None can say with surety how many of these workers have become homeless since the crisis put brakes on construction and development. Once they earned $200 per day but today it is nothing. The majority of them are illegal immigrants who may here today and not there tomorrow. It all depends on availability of work.
The shelter rules do not fit them as it may be too far from where there may be possibilities of jobs. If the job continues for sometimes then the doors of the shelter would close for them. The place of the shelter might be too far for them. The lurking fear haunting them is that their immigration position might be found out. Although the shelters are open to all, outreach workers might suddenly ask for their identification. Taking all this into consideration they have opted for sleeping outside here, there and everywhere.
Robert V. Hess the Commissioner of Homeless Services of New York City said, "We're still learning about this population, about their needs."
They cluster around probable working sites and relay messages to each other that suddenly they have found an opening to earn some honest dollars. But the work might be there for only a week.