November 03, 2003
Glen cove hiring center
In 1994, La Fuerza Unida opened a hiring center in response to complaints that
immigrant day laborers were creating a nuisance by gathering on streets and
contributing to overcrowded housing. The center, which began in a trailer on city
land, moved to a renovated shop on Sea Cliff Avenue. It is run by a bilingual
coordinator who acts as a liaison between the workers and the contractors, and
English instruction and other programs are provided.
25 Years and Time to Celebrate
By Pat Burson. STAFF WRITER
2003 November 09
Since La Fuerza Unida began 25 years ago to assist Hispanic and poor people in
Glen Cove, Pascual Blanco has measured its success by the thousands of lives
the nonprofit has touched.
Such as the young girl from the Dominican Republic, who was tutored by a
volunteer at the agency, went on to study education in college and returned to
head up its tutorial program.
Or the few men from El Salvador, who started out on the street trying to hustle a
day's pay for a day's work, learned a trade and started their own small
landscaping companies.
"Those are the byproducts of our effort," said Blanco, who in 1978 helped start
La Fuerza Unida, which in English means "the united force."
"We look at the potential and positive things that a newcomer brings in order to
build their skills, which in turn will be beneficial to our society here," Blanco, 61,
said.
La Fuerza Unida will mark its 25th anniversary with a gala Thursday night at
Chateau Briand in Carle Place. A portion of the proceeds from the event will help
establish a scholarship in the name of co-founder Teodoro Pérez.
Blanco, who has lived in Glen Cove since coming to the United States in 1961
from Puerto Rico, was one of a group of concerned residents who started the
organization to help Hispanic and low- and moderate-income people.
They started organizing in his home, applied for nonprofit status, "and then we
began to knock on doors of funders," Blanco said.
They spent their first $2,000 donation from a Catholic foundation in part on a
used typewriter. "We used to spend a lot of hours ... writing grant proposals," he
said. "We were then able to get our first grant for operations and programs from
Nassau County Youth Board."
The nonprofit opened its first office at 14 Glen St. in 1981 under the name La
Fuerza Unida de Glen Cove. In 1995, it was renamed La Fuerza Unida Inc. when
the agency expanded its reach to all of Long Island and Queens.
It has grown, and now offers programs that target neighborhood preservation,
economic and community development, immigration and citizenship and
education, among others.
El Salvador native Amilcar Valle, 19, works as a waiter and is perfecting his
English in the agency's adult education program. "It's beautiful really," he said.
"I'm learning a lot. I can feel it when I talk outside, at work. I know I can use
now different words. "
In 1994, La Fuerza Unida opened a hiring center in response to complaints that
immigrant day laborers were creating a nuisance by gathering on streets and
contributing to overcrowded housing. The center, which began in a trailer on city
land, moved to a renovated shop on Sea Cliff Avenue. It is run by a bilingual
coordinator who acts as a liaison between the workers and the contractors, and
English instruction and other programs are provided.
Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who first worked as a pro bono lawyer
for the group and supported its hiring center as Glen Cove mayor, will be among
honorees at the gala.
"I think [Blanco and La Fuerza] have really touched a lot of people's lives ... and
have made a lot of people's lives better," Suozzi said.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
Posted by dc at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2003
Eastern Island, Glen Cove
From East Beach Drive, looking southward, towards Stanco Memorial Park.
Near Lattingtown, Glen Cove, Nassau, NY.
Posted by dc at 12:34 AM | Comments (2)
July 07, 2003
Freeport alien worker site
Freeport Hiring Site Works Out
Tide turns for laborer haven
By Bart Jones STAFF WRITER
2003 July 04
When the Freeport day laborer hiring site opened in September, so few workers
showed up most days that coordinator Oscar Cortes thought the project might
flop.
As few as five workers would arrive, while three blocks away in the Dunkin'
Donuts and Long Island Rail Road parking lots, a throng of 100 or more men,
mainly Latin American immigrants, would wait for landscaping and construction
contractors to come by and offer them daily jobs.
Today, the roles are reversed: Cortes' site is attracting the bulk of day laborers
in Freeport, while the Dunkin' Donuts location is nearly deserted.
The three groups running the site - Catholic Charities, The Workplace Project of
Hempstead and the Village of Freeport - are calling it a success that may serve
as a model for other communities wrestling with one of the most contentious
issues on Long Island.
"We've turned the corner," Cortes, a Nicaraguan immigrant who holds an MBA
from Adelphi University, said one morning last week as about 40 men waited for
work at the site, in a municipal parking lot on Bennington Avenue in a
semi-industrial zone.
As the Freeport center nears its one-year anniversary, immigration advocates
are launching a renewed effort to set up more day labor hiring sites on Long
Island. They've created a fund that already has $130,000 and is expected to
grow to $250,000 shortly. They say they are taking the initiative because
governments across Long Island have failed to do so.
"We've stepped forward because nobody else was," said Darren Sandow,
program officer for the newly created Work Long Island Fund. "From the Nassau
border all the way out to Montauk, you've got a growing population of day
laborers."
Long Island is home to an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 day laborers. The majority
wait on street corners in communities including
Franklin Square, Inwood, Westbury,
Farmingville and Southampton,
where they crowd around the vehicles of contractors who pull up. But
Freeport, Glen Cove, and
Huntington Station
have created formal hiring sites.
Proponents say the centers resolve traffic safety problems and get the men off
dangerously busy street corners and onto organized sites where they also can
study English, computers and other subjects. Opponents say the locations often
fail to attract many workers and aid illegal activity because some workers are
undocumented immigrants who don't pay income taxes.
The issue has provoked heated debate. A proposed hiring site in
Farmingville was shot down in 2001,
while one that opened in Farmingdale
last August closed about a month later after some community opposition.
Although immigrant advocates and Mayor William F. Glacken are claiming victory
with the new site in Freeport, not everyone supports the idea. "There is no way
that anyone on the face of the Earth can convince me that what's going on there
is legitimate," said local resident Georgia Prunty. She added, "I'd rather be a
dead patriot than a live coward, because we're losing our country."
Cortes, who is employed by Catholic Charities immigrant services, said the
center's turnaround began in early May, when Freeport police intensified efforts
to direct contractors to it. The workers soon followed.
At 6:30 a.m. sharp each day, the men draw numbers to determine who will get
the first jobs that come in. Usually at least half of the 40 or so who show up get
work, Cortes said.
While waiting, they play soccer on the paved parking lot, take English classes
and surf the Internet on one of five computers inside a trailer that has running
water, a bathroom and a television.
"From the first day I came, this has been a good thing," Francisco Machado, 34, a
native of El Salvador, said in Spanish.
Still, not all of Freeport's day laborers are using the location. On Tuesday at 7:15
a.m., a dozen workers were gathered at the Dunkin' Donuts location. A handful
also waited for work at a couple other spots.
Cortes said he hopes to lure all the workers to the new site. "We've finally
arrived," he said. "This is the true deal."
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lisite263358324jul04,0,4778521.story?coll=ny-linews-archive
Posted by dc at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)