Posted on 05/23/2003 7:13:20 AM PDT by CMClay
More aid requests from once affluent seen
ALLEN – Mary Ann Knight thought she had seen and heard it all in the eight years she has worked at Allen Community Outreach, helping people make ends meet.
That is, until former upper-middle-class residents, hit hard by corporate layoffs that have rocked North Texas the last three years, began walking through the agency's doors, seeking help paying bills.
Mixed in their stacks of monthly bills that cover life's necessities are those that also cover lives the clients don't want to leave behind: $800 car payments, private school tuition that ranges from $1,200 to $2,000, mortgage statements up to $4,000, cable TV bills in the hundreds of dollars and country club dues, to list a few.
"I didn't think I could be shocked any more," said Ms. Knight. "When we tell people, 'We can't help pay those kind of bills. ... We're here to help with the basics,' they get upset with us. They'll say, 'We've always given to charity.'
"It's not like we don't want to help. But it's just that there are no funds for folks like that. They're just living way above the level in which we can help them."
Facing the prospect of losing their way of life, an increasing number of the unemployed are turning to social-service agencies for assistance for the first time. Allen Community Outreach has seen its number of clients increase by nearly 37 percent in its last calendar year, said executive director Glenda May.
Since January, the Assistance Center of Collin County in Plano has helped 2,292 residents by paying for prescriptions, utilities, mortgages and rent. About one-quarter of such charitable agencies' clients are previously unserved middle-class residents who request assistance of $4,000 to $8,000 a month, agency officials say.
Agency directors call folks new to being needy "the situational poor." They've depleted their savings and retirement accounts and struggle to cling to a lifestyle they no longer can afford.
"Our clientele has changed so much," said Kimberly Girard, program coordinator at Frisco Family Services. "We used to serve the working poor. Now it's the CEOs and former executives of companies. They've tapped out their bank accounts and borrowed from family members." Traditionally, charitable agencies have served the "generational poor" – a single mother of two who grows up poor and earns less than $15,000 annually, for example.
But the lagging economy has hit Collin County, the state's wealthiest county, particularly hard. Home to many of the telecommunications industry's top companies, the county boomed in the 1990s as newcomers flocked to fill high-paying positions.
In the last two years, though, the county's jobless rate has more than tripled, from 2 percent to 6.5 percent in March. The county has witnessed a 103 percent jump in the number of homes facing foreclosure.
Randi Lucero, 55, of Frisco is one of thousands who fell victim to the economic downturn. The marketing assistant was laid off from an electronics company after 22 years. Her unemployment benefits ended last week.
"My lifestyle is going to change drastically," Ms. Lucero said at a recent employment workshop. "I'm in an awkward situation because I support a lot of people. I also help provide for my daughter and grandchildren. There's a lot that we do, so I've got to figure a way to come up with some money."
At the Assistance Center of Collin County in Plano, Jackie Hall said cash-strapped homeowners today seek twice to three times as much in mortgage assistance than they did two years ago. Some are seeking as much as $4,000 in mortgage help a month, far exceeding most agencies' emergency assistance budgets for all their clients that range from $3,000 to $5,000 per month.
"Our funds are definitely stretched these days," said Ms. Hall, executive director.
Area social-service agencies are funded in part by the Collin County United Way, state and federal grants, and donations raised through annual fund-raisers. Said Ms. Girard of Frisco Family Services: "Just since the first of the year, we've seen an increase. Put it this way: In January, we had 15 new clients. In April, 58 new people walked through the door.
"I've had people who paid rent that was almost $1,200. I had a gentleman that wanted us to help pay $4,000 in bills. Our measly $300 assistance wouldn't get him anywhere."
Of the two groups the agencies primarily serve, many job counselors and case workers say that the 30-something and 40-something former professionals have the toughest time adjusting to sudden changes. "The people we call the situational poor are so beyond the level of what we can help with," said Ms. May. "It's like they're in denial. Some have even said, 'I want my United Way donation back.' In many ways, they're actually worse off than the single mother we normally help because they've never had to deal with adversity."
Tim Brown of Frisco, who was laid off by a small software development company 14 months ago, did everything society deems necessary to be successful: he earned a college degree, is highly skilled and eventually earned a six-figure salary.
"I still carry a lot of anger around with me," said Mr. Brown, who has since returned to graduate school for a master's degree and has tapped into his savings and retirement funds to support his wife and three children. He recently sought job-counseling assistance at Frisco Family Services.
"I don't know what the situation is going to bring me in the next six months. I was talking to someone who said, 'You're lucky you're getting your master's degree this summer,' but I don't know how lucky I am. The times changed so quickly, and it didn't allow a lot of planning to come along with that."
Wendy Darling, a career development coach for Frisco Family Services, said highly educated out-of-work professionals tend to identify with their professions and lifestyles more than the working poor.
"We identify so much with our jobs," she said. "For a lot of people, that's who they are. A lot of them are still attached to their salaries and the work they did. We all like our comfort zones. It's hard for them to adjust and accept their current circumstances before it's too late."
Several human service agencies have shifted their focus by providing job-coaching workshops and counselors to help the struggling cope and consider new careers.
"We're trying to get people to think out of the box and accept they may not make six figures any more – but is that so bad?" said Ms. Darling. "I think the positive lesson that could come out of this is that we as a community need to reach out to help our neighbors and get back to the basics in life.
"It's OK to have a nice home and nice things, but when they're gone, that doesn't mean you lose your soul."
They'll make lovely rooming houses for aging baby boomers who put all of their money in stocks that went bad.
Enough tongue-in-cheek (bad, Grania). It really is a horrible situation that you have baby boomers who have worked hard for over thirty years, paid for their kids educations, and trusted the hype from the mutual funds, even when they were losing value. These 50-somethings, most of them anyway, aren't going to get jobs with salaries that will help them build back their savings. These aren't the people who planned to live off handbacks; they did what the system told them to do and the system failed them.
I make enough money to be considered lower middle class. I drive a 91 VW Fox and I do not own a home, although I've been looking for one in the last few weeks. I can't believe that $100K buys so little, it's shocking to me, because I still think that's a lot of money.
I do live within my means though, and if I lost my job tomorrow I'd land on my feet. But I'll tell you one thing, the bitching and moaning from the white collar crowd is a little hard to take. I'll bet the miners and loggers would get a good laugh out of this thread.
God help the US if economic depression ever really hits, because if this is what our good citizens are made of, there's no telling the amount of mischief politicians will be able to make with such weak, effete (sp?) individuals.
As the daughter of an immigrant who worked like a dog at many things he probably hated doing, and rarely pissed and moaned about it, I find it repugnant.
Well, if I were a man and were going to have a woman who was only sticking around for the goodies, I'd surely keep trading 'em in. Upgrading.
And you would want government making these decisions because ____?
Let us differentiate what we mean when we speak of education. Are you referring to higher education or basic education? I have differentiated between the two in my posts- I think it is a worthy distinction. A basic education teaches you how to think- or it should. It provides you with a foundation to be able to dissect the world around you and function in it. Higher education specializes your knowledge. It is this specialization that allows one to earn a large income- provided there is a niche in the industrial world for this knowledge.
Note too the time frame I am speaking of- the future. I'm talking decades from now. There is a feedback loop in technological advancement. This feedback loop is growing ever shorter. What will we do one day when everything you specialize in during a four year curriculum becomes obsolete? What will we do?
I have not suggested we do anything. I have stated this is an idea that has come to my mind. It has come to me based upon observations of current trends. A knowledge feedback loop that gets shorter and shorter, technological advance that comes faster and faster and the ponderous nature of the education system combine to yield a sure problem somewhere down the line. I offered it for discussion. You have said my ideas would be disastrous if implemented but you have not said why.
I have not offered anything radical. I have only noted that at least 25% of every school year is wasted on summer holiday and that more thorough education could be provided in the same time or that the same education could be provided in less time (leaving more time for higher education or an earlier entry into the work force/marketplace). Is pointing this out bad? I don't think so. Also, home schooling is a form of "market place solution for education". Private schooling is as well. If private schooling becomes widespread (the option that most people use) you can bet the farm that eventually corporations will eventually control that industry as well.
"A. Pole" stated earlier that labour was a commodity. I agree. Education is as well. Private solutions will inevitably be more efficient and productive than public ones. The takeover of education by the free market is practically assured in the end.
Maybe they are, but they should not be.
LOL! Actually it does. Provided you're getting paid a fair salary for it.
What should they be then?
Believe me this is good for you - you may not like it at the time, but you do learn how to put money away and stay out of debt as much as possible.
I guess it depends upon where you are in the lay offs, wouldn't it? If you're the first guy in town to lose his job, selling the expensive house might not be difficult. But if the local economy has already started to tank, you may not find a buyer at the price you need to sell for.
Not entirely true - much of the basic science research is done in universities - corporations tend to avoid much basic science work for the obvious reasons - it's highly risky and not always guaranteed to lead to a profitable product.
The true education should primarily enable people to learn truth or to search for it. Only in the second order education is to used as a utilitarian job training.
The wages should be fair and just as the man is the purpose of the economy, of the laws and of the state. Man should not be treated as tool. And so the social Christian doctrine (as opposed to the free market heresy) is expressed in the following:
Compensation, as considered in the present article denotes the price paid for human exertion or labour. Wherever men have been free to sell their labour they have regarded its compensation as a matter that involved questions of right and wrong. This conviction has been shared by mankind generally, at least in Christian countries.
[...]
The Fathers of the Church implicitly asserted the right of the labourer to sufficient compensation for the maintenance of his life when they declared that God wished the earth to be the common heritage of all men, and when they denounced as robbers the rich who refused to share their surplus goods with the needy.
[...]
words of Pope Leo XIII in the famous Encyclical "Rerum Novarum" (15 May, 1891), on the condition of the working classes: "there is a dictate of nature more ancient and more imperious than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be sufficient to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions, because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of fraud and injustice."
[...]
( New Advent on compensation )
Boo hoo! If that is really the case, they are better off ridding themselves of this baggage
Mileage may vary. A few years ago there was a physician in Framingham, Mass, who did the financial forecast and figured out divorcing his wife was more expensive than keeping her. The solution? He killed her.
but they did embrace economic stagnation, declining birthrates, and massive unemployment, and spiralling public debt.
I posted a story earlier (Housing Prices Plummeting) and was flamed by some. No one wants to admit what is happening and what is coming. I am not a gold bug or a doomsayer. It's just a matter of fact.
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