Portland Day Labor Site Turns One Year Old

By Pete Springer | June 15, 2009 10:41 a.m. | Updated: June 16, 2010 11:58 p.m. | Portland, OR

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A publicly funded day labor site in Portland turns one year old Tuesday.  As Pete Springer reports, the center is busier than it was a year ago, but there are still more workers available than jobs.  
Names of available workers are drawn randomly from a container to decide who gets the next available job.About twenty people—mostly Latino men—get hired for work every day.Romeo Sosa is the executive director of VOZ—an organization that manages the day labor site.   He says the economy has affected the center.  Romeo Sosa: “Yeah, it’s increased the number of people who come for work.  And also more diverse.  Like Americans, Asians, even women.  They come and look for work here—so our challenge is there’s not enough work for everyone.” The day labor site was funded by a two-hundred-thousand dollar grant from the city and is on land owned by the Portland Development Commission. It's meant to provide a safe, centralized site for day laborers to find work.Sosa says they plan to ask the city for another fifty thousand dollars for the center's second year.

© 2009 OPB

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