Quiet end to Huntington Station day laborer site

Javier Mendoza closed the gates and fastened the padlock at the Huntington Station day laborer hiring site, as he had many times before. But he was visibly shaken as he performed the task for the last time.

With no fanfare, the site shut down Wednesday after 12 years of operation. In May the Huntington Town Board announced it would not renew the contract with site operator Family Service League because of declining use.

"It's a sad day," said Mendoza, the site coordinator. "These men really need this site, but life goes on."

In the site's waning hours there was much activity, but little hiring. The trailer was removed predawn. Around 8:30 a.m., volunteers from St. Hugh of Lincoln Church brought a tray of salad and a 40-quart pot of salmon and sausage soup. Just after 11, the last of the Port-A-Potties was removed.

During much of the morning, about 25 men scattered across the half-acre lot at Depot Road and Third Street, hoping to get hired. "Tomorrow we will have to be in the street," Wilfredo Martuta, 36, of Honduras, said through a translator. "There will be no place else to go."

Most of the men said the lot was more than a place to get a job. It also served as a distraction, a place for a hot meal, a bathroom facility and a source of warmth in the winter.

Closing it does not mean they will leave, they said, but that they have to relocate.

"A lot of people come here every day to look for work," Julio Sanchez, 38, of El Salvador, said through a translator. "I think they will continue to come here, or stay on the street. . . . We must do what we can for work."

While the town has a loitering law making it illegal to solicit either employment or the sale of goods while on public property or while traveling in a car along a public road, spokesman A.J. Carter said, "legally we can't enforce it because there is no alternative place workers can be directed to."

Some residents complained that taxpayer money was used to support the site. Others cited public safety hazards when workers went into the street to meet employers. The workers spoke of the unfairness - and what they believe is racism - of those who wished the site away with no alternative or consideration of their fate.

"It's easy not to have compassion when you have opportunity," Marvin Aguilar, 29, of Honduras, said through a translator. "They won the battle. It's going to become like Arizona."

But Mariano Baraona, 70, of Honduras, said his fellow workers bear some responsibility for the closing. "If you don't follow the rules, keep it clean and stay in the area," he said through a translator, "this is the cost we pay: they take it away."

After waiting for hours, Aguilar got lucky. Just before 11 a.m., contractor Eddie Serling pulled up looking for workers and after some discussion, hired Aguilar and another man.

"It's terrible that they are closing the site," Serling said. "But I'm sure they will find someplace else to go. They have to make a living."