Employers, laborers find center welcome relief

This center helps the people find work and get some English classes while they are waiting. DP

By Bill Dipaolo, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

palmbeachpost.com: JUPITER — A blue ticket can get Rito Hernandez $12 an hour.

That's why the 33-year-old Mexico native was outside Jupiter's Neighborhood Resource Center at 6 a.m. on a recent Friday morning. Three hours later, he was joined by about 120 others, who wrote their names on blue and red tickets that go into two plastic lottery jars.

If their tickets are chosen, they land jobs as landscapers, cleaners and painters. The laborers - almost all men, most younger than 40 and from Guatemala and Mexico - said the center is a welcome relief from their former outdoor pick-up spot along Center Street.

"Here, there is control. There was no control on Center Street. Here, I know everybody," said the painter and landscaper.

When the center opened, Jupiter passed an ordinance making contractors or laborers subject to a $500 fine if they solicit work on Jupiter's streets. Since then, laborers are gone from Center Street, said Moss Jahan Begum, the assistant manager at the Circle K on Center Street.

"They were everywhere, sitting and standing," Begum said.

Since opening five months ago, the center has registered about 1,200 workers, who must show proof they live in Jupiter or the town's unincorporated areas. About 1,500 employers have registered. About two-thirds of the employers are homeowners, the rest are business owners. Although center officials don't ask applicants immigration status, they estimate that about one-third of the workers are illegal. Catholic Charities of Palm Beach Inc. operates the center on the southwest corner of Military Trail and Indiantown Road. The non-profit organization obtained a $180,000 grant and signed a three-year lease last summer to rent the building, the former site of LifeSong Church, from Jupiter for $1 a year.

Original plans called for weekday hours only, but the center now is open seven days a week and English classes are taught at night. More hours mean the grant money will be used up by August, said Tom Bila, executive director of Catholic Charities. The Palm Beach Gardens-based charity pays two full-time employees. Friends of El Sol and the Hispanic advocacy group Corn Maya also provide support.
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