What we can do to help our cities

While attending school this fall I found myself unemployed and attending night classes. I had a hard time finding a new job after several days of searching, and went to the local day labor location. There was the potential for 6.75 an hour, the local minimum wage, for challenging physical labor. I hadn’t eaten that day, and I was quite pleased that a local mission had provided not one, but two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, on only slightly stale bread, and with 2 cookies, as well. Even if I didn’t get work, I did have breakfast and lunch, which was relieving, since I hadn’t eaten the day before either. I had started saving my money for days when I had class.

I noticed that most of the people there had stayed at the mission the night before. The policy was to boot people out at five in the morning, so they were forced to try for a few hours to wait in the day labor building, even if they do only wait until they can buy alcohol at nine in the morning.

Day labor is the easy solution for people condemning others for not being at work. They see a homeless person on the street, they think ‘he could get work at day labor’ but favoritism is common their, as is sexism. I am a young female, by no means petite, but I don’t look like a truck driver, either. In any case, I am physically fit, and could work circles around many of the men here…but they don’t want to send women to work. I showed up three days in a row, watching people who entered after me be selected for jobs before me, before giving up on the practice. Some men had similar problems, because only people with a history with the company would e selected early for job, everyone else was strung along.

I learned from this experience that missions are amazing institutions, which deserve our support. They brought food and soap to the day labor building, helping to maintain some potential for health among people who are the perfect targets for disease: 40 people without enough sleep, without a healthy diet, in a small room. They provided transportation to the one opportunity for work in the area, did not enable laziness, and did not enable drug use.

The other thing I learned is that day labor is a horrible institution which should never be endorsed. If you need work done, post an ad on craigslist, an online classified site used in almost all localities, accessible in public libraries. Post a sign on a telephone poll as you would were you having a yard sale, or offer some work (for fair pay) to someone asking for change on the street.

It’s not difficult to make a large difference in someone’s life. Some days I was able to earn $8.00 an hour doing some housework, or $10.00 an hour helping someone move, thanks to craigslist, and those small jobs saved me, allowing me to pay my rent on time, and buy some groceries…and for want of those little jobs I was left homeless only $60.00 short of my weekly rent.

By the way, I'm OK now, a good friend let me stay with him for a couple of weeks without charging me rent, and between fairly steady work and student loans, I've had money for rent the last two months.

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