Jessie is a drywall installer and has been trying to do the day-labourer thing, where companies hook people up with temporary work on a day-to-day basis. It’s a way to get some money together and find a place to rent. But a person living homeless can’t pack up their camp and leave it for the day, or bylaw takes it. So that means finding someone on the block to guard it all day, starting at 6:30 am when the temp company is signing people up. Sometimes you’ll wait there until noon only to find out there’s no work for you, says Jessie. And if he’s ever lucky enough to get hired on for a longer stretch with the contractor that hired him for the day, the temp company considers that a breach in their own contract and doesn’t let the worker come back for any other temp job for a few weeks. “I was really trying to go to work every day, but there’s no washrooms down here, no showers, no place for my stuff. It feels like I’m starting over and over. I can’t get a leg up.”