By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier file photo

Los Altos

Hundreds of day workers could be back on the streets in Los Altos and Mountain View later this month when St. Joseph the Worker Center is forced to shut its doors after its lease expires Oct. 31.

The landlord already extended the center’s lease twice earlier this year. Another extension is unlikely, said program director Steve Pehanich. He attributed higher rent and program costs as well as overcrowding to the nonprofit’s closure at El Camino Real in Los Altos.

Pehanich said the 1,000-square-foot building attracts more than 250 workers a day. Officials from the non-profit St.Vincent De Paul, which operates the program, were looking to raise money for a larger location to accommodate the center earlier this year. A possible relocation to a site in Mountain View’s industrial area looked dismal, Pehanich said.

The non-profit program has trained, counseled and provided work for hundreds of day laborers over the past five years.

If the center is unable to relocate elsewhere, the workers it serves will be left in the streets, a volunteer at the center said.

John Rinaldi, a Mountain View resident and attorney for St. Vincent De Paul, told the Los Altos City Council last week that he intends to legally challenge the city if it enforces its no solicitation ban that prohibits the solicitation for workers in the public right of way in designated zones.

Mountain View passed a similar ordinance last year after residents complained about day workers loitering along the street.

Rinaldi said he believed the ordinance raises constitutional issues.