"This is no life": Ailing Economy Kicks Day Laborers to the Curb

Before the recession, millions were already at the tipping point. When it takes 3 minimum wage jobs to keep an apartment, as it does in many American cities, economic security at best means making it to the next paycheck.

For undocumented day laborers in New York City, security in every sense is even more precarious. A story in Friday's New York Times describes the plight of immigrants now homeless who fall through the cracks. Because of fears that they may be deported or discriminated against, these newly homeless from Ecuador, Mexico and elsewhere often avoid the shelter system altogether.

Although it's difficult to determine how many of these homeless day laborers now people NYC, the population is catching the attention of homelessness advocates. According to the Times, "With their isolation and day-to-day existence, the laborers are perhaps the most invisible and hardest-to-reach victims of the recession...No one knows for sure how many have become homeless since the downturn brought construction projects to a virtual standstill and sapped them of jobs that once paid as much as $200 a day. Most of them are illegal immigrants who may be on the streets one day and off the next, depending on their work."

An additional challenge to these day laborers is that shelter requirements are often too restrictive to accommodate a work schedule that changes with unpredictable frequency. Because of this, these work-seeking homeless are left in the cold: "Ignacio Sanchez, 50, who has a wife and three children in Mexico, said a week before Christmas that he had worked once since the beginning of the month. Rodrigo Saldaña, 41, who has a wife and five children in Ecuador, said he had not worked at all last month. Both said they had spent nights sleeping on the train or by the railroad tracks."

One day worker said of his living conditions, "This is no life."

What the story doesn't allude to is a further complication. People like Ignacio Sanchez are vulnerable to double stigma, that of being an immigrant from a Spanish-speaking country and homeless. This undoubtedly speeds the drop through the safety net. To me, the reality of compounded social alienation highlights a timely need for greater cultural competency in homelessness advocacy. There are various definitions, but one possible way to understand it comes from the National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University: "Cultural competence refers to a program's [or individual's] ability to honor and respect those beliefs, interpersonal styles, attitudes and behaviors both of [the homeless] and the multicultural staff who are providing."

In other words, having a big heart means taking on racist, anti-immigrant sentiment along with homelessness. You can't fight one without the other. It's all connected.

Image courtesy of the New York Times