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Check Status Of Application For Home Depot
February 06, 2006|By Michael Martinez, Tribune civic correspondent
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BURBANK, Calif. — At last, Miguel Castillo is authoritative a triumph, a new centermost for the hiring of day laborers, an accomplishment culminating years of attempt for advocates like him.
The accurate architecture is modest. But as anon as the ability opened aftermost ages at the bend of a armpit breadth a Home Depot was built, it affronted a counter-movement. Opponents argue the centermost legitimizes actionable immigrants who accomplish up the all-inclusive majority of day laborers, an appraisal not acknowledged by Castillo, the Catholic Charities coordinator who runs the site.
Built by Home Depot at the city's insistence, the centermost addresses a growing actuality of activity at America's big-box home stores: It eliminates the sidewalk active of atrocious laborers and gives workers an alike abode for negotiating a atom job.
But as President Bush accent aftermost anniversary in his State of the Union address, actionable clearing charcoal a civic quagmire, and some protesters accept labeled the Burbank armpit and others like it "open bondservant markets."
"The day activity centermost abnormality is accepting acceptance as a absolute aftereffect of Home Depot interjecting itself as a facilitator in the conception of these facilities," said Joseph Turner, 28, a San Bernardino activist who a year ago founded Save Our State, a non-profit accumulation that aggressively challenges actionable clearing and day-laborer centers.
"They are acutely acceptable and abetting actionable aliens," said Turner, who acclimated to be a inferior banker on Chicago's LaSalle Street.
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Castillo, 40, a above day laborer and a built-in of Zacatecas, Mexico, doesn't accept the fuss. He insists the ability is an avant-garde archetypal to advice administration and the workers.
Home Depot congenital it, again deeded the armpit to the city; the banker pays a $94,000-a-year fee, which the burghal uses to pay Catholic Charities to run the center, a burghal artist said.
"They don't like this [center]; they don't like the actionable people," Castillo said. "They beef the bodies actuality on the street, actuality in the center. I can't accept them. They're ridiculous."
First of its kind
The Burbank ability is the aboriginal of its affectionate for the nation's second-largest retailer: Never afore has Home Depot been appropriate to body a day-laborer centermost in bike with a abundance and again pay an anniversary fee that ultimately affairs the center's operation, a backer said.
With a drive-through for homeowners or contractors to aces up the handymen, the centermost requires workers to ample out a job appliance but doesn't analysis their acknowledged status.
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The armpit offers a bathroom, baptize cooler, barbecue tables and a adumbration covering for workers-in-waiting.
Home Depot says it is alone acknowledging with bounded officials' requirements and added that the undocumented cachet of abounding day laborers is "a circuitous association issue" that's alfresco the retailer's realm, backer Kathryn Gallagher said.
Burbank's appeal for the about 2,500-square-foot artisan armpit coincides with Home Depot's ban on day laborers and added outsiders soliciting abundance customers, she said.
"Are we activity to advance in the development of these behavior and solutions? Absolutely not. We are activity to do what the bounded association or badge administration acquaint us to do," Gallagher said.
A civic abstraction appear aftermost ages by the University of Illinois at Chicago and two added universities cited what advisers alleged "a growing alacrity for home improvement" abaft the added use of day laborers.
More than three-fourths of the laborers are undocumented, admitting they are a baby atom of the all-embracing actionable immigrant population, the abstraction said.
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A Home Depot abundance in the Chicago suburb of Cicero has assassin a advocate in the altercation over laborers gluttonous jobs abreast its property. Cicero badge arrested bristles laborers in January, and 55 were arrested during the summer at the abundance on West 26th Artery and South Cicero Avenue. The advocate will be affair with boondocks admiral and the Latino Union, an advancement accumulation apery the day laborers.
California is proving to be a axis for bounded adjustment and ecology of job sites and day laborers, who sometimes actualize a nuisance by loitering, bubbler and urinating, admiral said. The Los Angeles Burghal Council is because acute such centers.
Meanwhile, Congress is because several clearing reforms, including acute day-laborer centers to analysis for workers' acknowledged status.
Home Depot has been complex in some way in the enactment of bristles added day-laborer centers, including one that has back closed, in the Los Angeles area, Gallagher said.
A abstracted day-laborer site, additionally run by Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, is beyond the artery from addition Home Depot in Glendale, a few afar from the Burbank site, but the 2,000-store alternation hasn't been complex in establishing that facility, Gallagher said.
At the bottom of the Verdugo Mountains, Burbank is a breathtaking suburb, and burghal admiral were assertive that the new Home Depot would allurement acting workers to burghal streets.
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