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."
The problem is ---our economy depends on people described in the article ---people like you ---or like me aren't very good consumers. Sure people can learn to live in a $3000 used mobile home and they can just learn to buy and drive $300 older cars ----but the taxes the government is going to get from a bunch of unemployed people paying low sales tax and property tax isn't going to pay for all the government spending programs.
In a free market globalized economy "hard work"/labor is just a commodity to be priced as cheap as possible.
All the signs are there before the marriage ---- trophy women are costly ---but they're pretty obvious from the beginning.
They need to start remodeling these homes into apartments. One big house should be able to provide 6-8 apartments that could be rented out. It wouldn't be a good idea to allow these houses be vacant and vandalized.
....I always kept a minimum of one year's salary in cash/govt bonds on hand....it's expensive to do that but it buys a lot of piece of mind....companies are awful cut throat these days....the old idea of employer-employee loyalty is going by the wayside....you can't rely on the company to take care of you anymore....notice the screw jobs some retirees are getting on their retirements?....big name companies too....I expect it will only get worse in the future with more mergers, consolidations, globalization and out sourcing...
Good luck to everyone!
Stonewalls the Ant
"Lack of jobs" as a learning - funny. You guys do not know what REAL learning is! My family (parents generation) experienced total devaluation of savings, loss of houses and property (confiscated/destroyed), having close relatives executed or sent to the concentration camp. Do you want to learn that?
Tarrifs. Foreign based companies should pay tarrifs or sell their stuff to the Indian/Chinese market.
I might make some rhetoric but the real class warfare is waged by those who equalize the American wages with Third World.
True enough. The gov't has a vested interest in keeping people out there consuming as much as possible.
Sure people can learn to live in a $3000 used mobile home and they can just learn to buy and drive $300 older cars
For the record I live a bit better than that. But my wife and I give a lot of thought to the things we buy. When we decide we want something we spend a lot of time deliberating about it. It doesn't mean we won't buy an expensive model- it just means we won't buy on an impulse. And we don't go into debt to buy the things we want. Rather, we use the interest saved by not purchasing with credit to buy other things. This is a point that gets lost on a lot of people and it simply baffles me as to why that is. If people care about having stuff- you can have more stuff in the long run if you don't buy your stuff with credit.
We're really picky in what we buy as well. I remember buying a tent once. We went so far as to construct scale models out of paper of the different models we were interested in and debating it over weeks and weeks. (we wound up buying a really expensive one LOL!)
At any rate, this is the way we go about buying things and managing our money. When we're interested in buying something we usually educate ourselves to the point that we know more about the product than the salesperson. I would agree that we're not good consumers because we don't buy stuff that other people seem to be buying and we don't buy on the spur of the moment. But we do buy things and we reward ingenuity and quality when we do.
We might not be good consumers but we also don't have any worries about the economy going downhill. I haven't realized there's been a recession. It hasn't affected my life at all and things would have to get pretty bad before it did.
This statement alone says it all. I earn what most people would consider an "upper middle-class" income, and even with no family to support I wouldn't even dream of buying half this crap.
When you say that the Earth is round, are you "quoting Marx"? He was also saying this.
Well, one could always do what I did. When the real estate market tanked out here in Los Angeles, in the early 90s, I brought up my typing skills and temped for a few months, before landing myself in an HMO working for about 45k per year. This was a 35 % reduction in my income. I drive a 1983 Toyota Corolla, and live in an apartment, well within my means. It sucks, but hey, ya gotta do, what ya gotta do.
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