The city granted the Mountain View Day Worker Center a one-year permit for its new downtown location last Wednesday, all but guaranteeing the center a home for the next 12 months. But with no long-term site or funding source lined up, its future remains uncertain.
The center’s new site, Trinity United Methodist Church on Hope and Mercy Streets, is spacious — much larger than the old space at Escuela Avenue and California Street — and it even includes a kitchen.
Neighborhood opposition to the center has boiled down to a few outspoken residents expressing concerns about crime, loitering and the politics of illegal immigration. (Mountain View police said worries over crime are refuted by police reports from the old site.)
The city, however, found no significant impacts from the move, said associate planner Melinda Dennis. Neighbors have been largely supportive, she said.
The city’s permit has placed several requirements on the center, including business hours of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. six days a week, bike racks for workers and proper signs out front. Also, the mobile health clinic is allowed there only two days a week, and the car wash fund raisers done at the old site won’t be allowed in the public parking lot.
The city will replace street signs directing employers to the old site with signs to the new center.
