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Agencies struggle to help the 'new poor'
Comments 0 | Recommend 0LIMA - It is no secret that times are tough for a lot of folks around the region.
Costs are up. Property values are down. If you're lucky enough to work for a business that hasn't issued a wage freeze, you may well be in the minority.
Call it a recession, a burst bubble or just hard times, but a whole new group of people is hurting and looking for help.
There has always been poverty in the area. As the economy worsens, those who provide help say they're seeing a new class of people coming through the doors, the working class.
"We're getting a lot of people coming in, people with jobs, people we've never seen before coming in for help making mortgage payments, help paying utilities, everything," said Jacqueline Fox, chief operating officer for the Lima/Allen Council on Community Affairs. "These are people who have a job, maybe used to have a good-paying job, and now they need help,"
The new poor
Service providers call them the new poor, a rush of people who, because of bad breaks or bad decisions, now find themselves struggling to make ends meet.
Exactly who they are and how many there are depends on how you measure them. The number of unemployed people in the region has increased by nearly 25 percent in the past 18 months. Allen County foreclosures jumped by nearly 8 percent in the first three months of this year. In Ottawa, food pantries that once served 30 families every two weeks now serve 70.
But none of those numbers tell the whole story.
"If there's one thing that sort of covers it all, it's that the majority of our people are working," Fox said. "They may not be making a huge wage. They might be working two 20-hour jobs instead of a regular 40-hour week, but they have jobs, and they're still not able to make it without help."
For Johnny Jameson, the only number that matters is his bank account, and that's closer to zero than he ever dreamed it would get.
A year ago, he was living the American dream. He had steady construction work, a tidy little Cridersville home and a decent truck. Then the housing market bombed, and work began to dry up. His wife got sick, and the bills kept coming.
He realized he was in trouble the day his truck broke down, and he couldn't figure out how he could pay to get it fixed.
"I never had a lot of money, but it was always enough to take care of stuff like that. I'm not making a lot less or anything, there's just more you've got to pay. Everything's so expensive, and I don't make enough to pay it all," Jameson said.
Finding the reasons
Experts say a combination of the housing crunch and spikes in energy costs left a whole class of people who were once living comfortably now facing problems once reserved for the poor.
"We've seen a lot of new folks. This past winter heating season, there was a huge influx of folks we've never served. With the high cost of energy, people just can't keep up," said Marva Cowan, centralized intake director for LACCA.
Couple that with a generation of bad spending habits, and you have a disaster we should have seen coming.
Many working families no longer have a buffer against poverty. Just as a broken truck put Jameson over the edge, any surprise expense, even a small one, can topple the household budget.
"It doesn't take much. You get to the point where you're living behind," Jameson said. "You don't pay the power until they're ready to cut it off, then it's a $400 bill. Then you're in trouble," Jameson said.
That's how it often goes for families, said Michelle Evans, LACCA's child development services director.
"People are just cratered by any emergency situation in their home. If somebody gets hurt or somebody in the neighborhood slashes their car tire, they can't get to work. They can't afford to get it fixed. Suddenly their whole world is upside down in one day," Evans said.
Reaching out
For many of the newly poor, asking for help is a new experience. Just working up the will to ask is tough enough, but figuring out who to ask can be downright daunting.
"It is a complicated process to go through, and that's one of the things that gets very frustrating for our customers," Fox said.
For Allen County residents, there are typically two entry points for assistance.
Families, particularly those in need of unemployment checks or other traditional government assistance, start at Job and Family Services. The others, including those who need help with housing and utility payments, head to LACCA.
From those two agencies, people can be directed to one of the more than 200 social services organizations in the county.
"We do a pretty good job of directing people to the appropriate agency. We all kind of work together, so if someone's not eligible for a program here, we don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call someone else," Fox said.
There are other resources available. Rhodes State College manages the Community and Social Service Network, an Internet informational database dedicated to linking citizens and human service professionals with social services in the area. The database - located at www.limaallenhelp.com - can be searched by category to help those in need find the right agency to help.
The state manages a similar site, called the Ohio Benefits Bank - www.obb.ohio.gov - that can help people see if they're eligible for food stamps, earned income tax credits and other benefits.
Once they've determined eligibility and where to go, clients need to take the next step, and that can be the toughest of all.
"We feel that there is some stigma to people being willing to ask for
help, but in tough times, when you've already leaned on family, friends and neighbors and still can't make ends meet, then they are forced to seek help," said Amy Sealts, Putnam County Family and Children First Council coordinator.
Even smaller, relatively well-off communities such as Ottawa are seeing an increase in calls for assistance. Those problems are complicated by the absence of some programs and slight knowledge of those that do exist.
"A problem with that, at least in our county, is that there are very few resources to help with things like (mortgage assistance) unless there's an eviction notice," Sealts said.
"We do have a problem with information (about services). There are lots of people out there working together to get the word out, but there is definitely work yet to do."
The numbers grow
While social service workers rush to fill holes in service and try to make more with less, the number of needy keeps growing.
The West Ohio Food Bank managed to increase the amount of food it put out to the food banks and soup kitchens it serves by 5 percent. At the same time, the demand increased by 8 percent.
"That doesn't sound like a whole lot, but that constitutes almost 15,000 people. We're having to really hunt for sources of food," said Food Bank Director Bambi Markham.
The rising cost of food and fuel to transport it makes a nightly meal an increasingly costly affair. At Lima's Churches United Pantry, people can come in and select food from the open pantry. The pantry typically offers three days of food for a family to cover emergencies. Increasingly, people are coming in needing help feeding their family until the next payday.
"Every shift that I work, I see new faces. They say, ‘I have a job, and I don't like coming in and taking the food, but these are tough times,'" said volunteer Art Wilde.
The pantry, like most area providers, has seen an increase in numbers. In May 2007, it served 492 people. This May, it was 743.
Even with the numbers growing, those who serve them try hard not to send anyone away. Coordinators say their biggest challenge can be getting people to admit their needs and get help.
"Don't be afraid to ask for help. Ask," Fox said. "For most of these new people, it's their taxpayer money supporting these programs. They have a right to the help."
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