A Day in the Life of a Homeless Day Laborer

I first met "Jerry" at a day shelter during the summer of 2007. He's an eight grade dropout pushing 50. A lifetime of manual labor has taken a heavy toll on him, but he never shows it. On the streets, weakness is something that is easily exploited by damned near anyone who can.

Jerry is a quiet and thoughtful man, most of the time, and on this particular day he was waiting for his turn at the washing machines while playing cards with a couple of other guys who were there for the same purpose. He has a habit of stroking his goatee almost obsessively when he speaks with someone.

Jerry and I traded conversations on occasion after our initial meeting, and I could tell he was a proud man, accustomed to making his own way, however small that way may have been, and was uncomfortable as hell asking for anything that even remotely resembled a handout. He asked me only once for something; a blanket, and I knew by his body language and the look on his face that it took just about everything he had to bring himself to request it.

I brought him into my office for a minute and while I dug for the blanket in our clothes closet, I said, "Hey Jerry, didja hear about the leper hockey game? There was a faceoff in the corner." He cracked a smile and let out a rough chuckle, and it dissipated the cloud of shame I knew hung over him as he asked me for something he felt he should've been able to provide for himself.

We've been friends ever since.

Around Christmastime of this year, I found him wandering through downtown and he told me about the hassles he was having with day labor. What you're about to read is an accounting of a typical day for Jerry, and there's no doubt in my mind that things haven't changed at all for him since he shared it with me back in December.

* * *

Jerry rises from his bed, a concrete slab tucked up between the beams under a local I40 overpass. It's 3am, 8 degrees and the wind is blowing hard from the west, dragging with it the grimy ashes from last night's small cooking fire and tossing it directly onto Jerry's hair, face and clothes.

No need to get dressed, he's slept in damned near everything he owns, including his two sets of socks and his cherished but tore-back pair of boots, in order to keep warm during the night and he's been doing so ever since the weather turned cold back in late November.

Jerry shrugs off the cold and begins the 4 mile walk from his spot under the bridge he considers home to a local Temporary Employment office, "day labor," as the tramps call it. He hustles with each step because he knows there'll already be people in line and he wants to make sure he's close enough to the door to actually get a shot at being selected for a day of what often ends up being grueling, backbreaking labor.

It's supposed to be "first-come, first-serve" but he knows the staffers at this agency, just like all the rest, have their favorites, and he isn't one of them. He also knows there's a couple of guys who own the temp agencies and incidentally, also own halfway houses. The guys in those halfway houses always get preferential selection; this way the bosses are ensured they'll also get their inflated rent from their tenants, who "they're just trying to help," naturally.

He rolls into the lot around 415am and sure enough, the line's already long and growing by the minute.

He steps in place and begins the wait, in the cold, with a crowd of other sleepy men and women.

At 5am the door swings open and a mass of humanity floods into an oversize garage. As each person passes by a small window, they leave their name with the man behind the glass. Most have been "on file" here for some time and simply state their names. Some are new faces and are presented with an application of sorts, which allows them to list their skills and former jobs so that they can be assessed for placement in jobs suitable for their skill levels.

Based on their answers, jobs are supposed to be given that for some, pay a little better, based on skills learned from other jobs. But most workers quickly discover that the employer at the actual job site "makes the decision whether to pay skilled, semi-skilled or general labor wages, and we (the temp agency) just pay what they set."

It's usually the "general labor" wage, $6.55 an hour (minimum wage). Jerry has never made more than that, nor has anyone he knows that's worked for the agency. Jerry tells me he's skilled too, a journeyman welder, and has done some intricate jobs that required x-ray verification to ensure the welds are good. From the little I know about welding, having your work pass an x-ray exam sounds far more skilled than anything I could ever do.

Today Jerry gets lucky. He gets a work ticket. Unfortunately, the job requires safety glasses, steel toed boots and a hard hat. Jerry has none of these items.

But the temp service does and will rent them to Jerry, for a total of $4 dollars a day. Jerry has no choice but to accept the deal, since he can't work without the proper equipment.

He gets his gear rented and readies himself for transport to the job. It's another $6.00 to ride in the van that will take him to the site and then back to the temp agency when the job ends for the day.

He spends this particular day drilling holes in concrete, using a concrete saw, lugging chunks of old "crete" and iron to the edge of a building and then tossing them up and into a front-end loader's bucket, which happens to set at about chest level.

Jerry wonders why it isn't on the ground but he doesn't say anything to the driver/operator since he doesn't want to appear weak or come across as a whiner, since peeps like that don't ever get called back.

There are about 5 guys from the same temp service who are working in this group and a company foreman stands nearby, ensuring that all the "rent-a-bums," as he calls them, are putting forth a full effort. Breaks are closely monitored and lunch is 30 minutes.

Jerry works himself hard all day, hoping he'll receive a check in the box on the work-ticket that allows him to come back tomorrow.

After 9+ hours on his feet in boots that don't fit, Jerry gets to return to the temp agency to reap the green fruit of his labor, minus the deductions for travel and rental equipment.

For a day of backbreaking manual grunt-work, involving hauling, cutting, and breathing concrete and concrete dust, Jerry receives a grand total of $43.90.

They cut him a check for that amount, but Jerry doesn't have a bank account. He walks across the street to a local Sun Trust bank, where the check is drawn on. The bank charges him $5.00 to cash the check, even though it's cut from the bank he's standing in.

Jerry now has $38.90 in his pocket. He's worked himself into a massive hunger and wasn't able to eat any lunch, since he had no money when he arrived this morning.

But he also stinks from several nights under the bridge and the sweat he expended as he toiled all day has made him "riper than a buffalo fart," as he puts it. He would really love a long, hot shower.

Unfortunately, the cheapest room he can find in the area will cost him $36.00 before taxes, if they have one of those rooms available. If not, he'll definitely not be able to afford the $40+ it'll cost him for a "better" room.

He can't shop around, since he's got to walk wherever he goes, so he decides to opt for a big meal and spends $7 at the local fast food joint, since he really isn't able to cook much over his fire under the bridge.

He finishes his burger, heads back to his "home" at the "Overpass Inn" and stops along the way to pick up a 40-ounce beer; he'll use it to quell the aches and pains he's feeling from a day of hard labor.

He crawls into his filthy bedroll after drinking his 40, happy that he's going to return to work for at least one more day this week, and maybe tomorrow he'll even be able to eat lunch. if he's really lucky, he'll get another "may return" checked and he might even be able to spend the night in a fleabag motel, where cockroaches run in herds over the walls and bedbugs feast on unsuspecting sleepers.

Who knows, maybe Jerry will be able to work the whole week. If this happens, he should be able to afford some new boots. He damned sure needs them, since the soles on the ones he's wearing now are flapping like the tongues of overheated St. Bernards whenever he walks.

But he knows chances are pretty slim that he'll be returning all week; the job ends when the concrete work is finished and from his expert analysis, this will take another day and a half, two at the most.

He sighs, pulls the covers over his head and tries to grab a few hours sleep before he has to do it all over again.

His last thought before sleep overtakes him is of a comment he heard from a passing car while walking home tonight, clutching his 40; "goddam bum, why dontcha get a job?"