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."
Actually, our system is designed to produce docile factory hands and cannon fodder who do (and think) as told. And it fulfills that task very well. 80% of what 8th grade students study is review of what they learned in 4th grade. "Look say" reading techniques decrease literacy.
Progress is created by the nerds and misfits the system is designed to weed out -- like that college dropout, Bill Gates!
OTOH, home schoolers are already giving their bouncy offspring an accelerated and broader education.
Actually, it's three extra years ...
Don't you love being picked on?
Obviously, if you don't waste the 3 months in the first place you wind up with a school calender year of 12 months and 12 years like that would give you 144 months of total instruction rather than the current 108 but you could just as well limit normal school education to 9 years at that point instead of 12.
This sounds more like the 100 year flood than the a rainy day. I have a friend who is relo-ing to Austin this summer and is coming in with alot of equity cashed out of a DC home sale. He says that the asking price per sq ft has been falling 10% a month since he started looking in March. His retorical question," When does on buy into a downward spiral?"
One question here though, if you put all the restrictions on the companies in the US, what is to stop them from simply leaving the US?
It seems to me they would have a great deal of incentive to do exactly that because they would not be able to compete with European countries who outsource their own labour requirements to cheap countries. I imagine if we did something like this European companies would be rubbing their hands with glee. They would be able to manufacture their products far cheaper than it was possible for their American competition to do.
The next logical step after that is to restrict trade with Europe because they continue the practice. Where does that end?
As long as the Federal Reserve is in controll of our money, you are in debt.
You can boast about how you do not use credit cards, but as long as the foreign bankers have their claws in our money supply, you are paying interest to them.
For a debt free money system, get rid if the Federal Reserve and tar and feather Alan Greenscam.
A wife who only sticks around for the cash flow, is an overly-expensive whore. A couple of my friends have discovered this
A wife who only sticks around for the cash flow, is an overly-expensive whore. A couple of my friends have discovered this
Not to mention that a plain vanilla whore can't sue for alimony...
It would be much more fun to see the CEOs, owners, affluent free market fundies etc who exported/outsourced American jobs abroad, to live on food stamps and $300/month assistance. And who knows, when all their assets are in India and Red China it might happen some day.
Or rather to live withing the means equalised with other countries (not Western European ones, since those did not embrace the free market fundamentalism yet).
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