Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer recommended using the jobless to help the homeless yesterday. But he should take a page out of Brooklyn Democratic party boss Vito Lopez's book, skip the desperate jobless middlemen, and go straight for the cheapest labor: junkies! According to the Post, Assemblyman Lopez used dozens of addicts who lived at El Regreso, a rehabilitation center funded by Lopez, to work 16-hour shifts going door-to-door to help get Lopez re-elected as district leader last month.
"If the residents refused, they would lose their privileges to make calls and see family members. If the staff refused, they would lose their jobs," a drug counselor who was fired shortly after the primaries told the Post. Facility director Miguel Cordova said "it's a lie" that residents did campaign work, but several other people told the Post they saw patients and staff wearing "We Love Assemblyman Vito Lopez" T-shirts: "We saw people from their campaign bringing them cigarettes, telling them to be loud and rowdy. They were chain-smoking, very jittery, aggressive people," said Diana Torres, who saw the campaigners outside PS 50.
Of course, the hits keeps coming for Lopez—the Daily News says that Lopez may list a Bushwick address as his place of residence, but his neighbors haven't seen him around (ever). Instead, the News found, "Over four days, Lopez parked his gray Acura - with its special Assembly license plate, No. 25 - in a reserved spot in front of [his girlfriend]'s six-story Glenridge Mews [Queens] building."
