Tap into community, college resources

At the Board meeting tonight, a statement resonated with me.  Andres noted how SEEC was fortunate to be located in such a wealthy and caring community as Arlington.  The thought crossed my mind that perhaps we can tap into a few of these wealthy and caring communities.

One idea was to locate college groups with liberal agendas and professors with studies specific to Central/Latin America/immigration that would be willing to support or host an event for the laborers.

Why couldn’t we see if any embassies would be willing to host, advertise, or recommend grous with whom we could partner to raise awareness or funds?

Why couldn’t we solicit community associations to contribute to an event (even if it were even a food-can drive)?

Sign the Pavillion

It wasn’t until a month or so ago that I noticed a sign (“Busca trabajadores”) advertising SEEC’s services at the intersection of Walter Reed and Four Mile.  It made me smile but also made me think: do we have such good signage at the Pavillion?  If not, perhaps we should consider creating a sign that states that laborers are available with the hours of pavillion operation and SEEC’s phone number.

There is a positive and a negative side to this clear signage.  A positive aspect is that the sign could draw in more people who want to hire laborers, which could lead to a number of outcomes including more jobs for more people, more people on single jobs, and/or longer jobs for people.  The negative aspect is that we could be advertising a controversial cause that could draw negative attention to us.

The appearance of order through heaters and fans

At tonight’s Board meeting, a reoccuring topic was the appearance of order for potential buyers and builders of the new condos/housing in and around Shirlington.  SEEC’s business would not want to raise flags with these folks.

For those of you who don’t know, while the office and pavillion are set up to manage the day laborers at two specific locations, the men often times do not use these facilities and instead wander around on the streets.  From doing a study of Herndon’s day laborer site, I’m aware that the public perception of these wanderers is fairly negative; some will note that wanderers pose a problem to transportation as they stand on the corners and in the medians of roads.  Some may argue that they pose a threat to the harmony of the community since they do not seem to “fit in”.  Others may even attribute their sheer presence to criminal activity.

To avoid this negative attention, one Board member mentioned that it might be worthwhile to communicate with the developers and reach an understanding on matters at end before a situation escalates.

One other way to aleviate tension might be to draw the laborers into these sites (primarily the pavillion) by having heaters and fans placed outside to reduce the uncomfortable extreme temperatures in the winter and summer respectively.  The idea is that the placement of a heater or fan will draw the wanderer into that central location and keep him there while still giving him the opportunity to see and make the dash for jobs if a car drives up to the pavillion.

The negatives to this plan is that we’d have to pay for the purchase or rent of the heater/fan and pay for the electricity for their use at the pavillion.