Herald News

After a little more than a year in operation, Passaic's center for day laborers faces a shutdown. Construction in the area has been in decline. Consequently, day laborers have had difficulty pitching in toward the center's $500 per month rent. On Monday, a day laborers leader told the center's landlord that the group couldn't pay the rent and would soon hand over the keys to the storefront at 39 Parker Ave.

"It's a sad situation," the landlord says. He's right, especially when you consider the problems the center sought to address.

Before the center opened in January 2007, as many as 100 men had been assembling on street corners in the hope that they'd be chosen for a day's work. Sometimes the workers became what Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera called "fresh."

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