Need for food, shelter rises as Sacramento economy falls.

[AlCzervik]

I just got done reading this story in my local paper this morning and thought i would share the article.

By Jocelyn Wiener
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, April 26, 2008

Programs that feed and shelter the region's down-and-out are reporting a spike in need in recent months, as a national economic downturn displaces more workers.

Some of those seeking help are renters whose landlords have lost houses to foreclosure. Others are laid-off workers who've overstayed their welcome on friends' couches. And still others are part- or full-time employees trying to stretch inadequate paychecks by accepting an occasional free meal.

Many are finding themselves in such situations for the first time.

"We are seeing the recession hitting," said Sister Libby Fernandez, executive director of the Loaves & Fishes homeless services complex on North C street. "We're really feeling that there's a lot of new faces."

In March, the organization handed out 672 lunch tickets a day, a 9 percent increase compared with January. Staff there expect the numbers to keep ticking upward.

The Sacramento region's unemployment rate climbed to 6.5 percent last month, the highest it's been in 11 years. But even for those who have jobs, the mismatch between wages and rising prices is proving increasingly difficult to ignore.

In October, the California Budget Project, a research group that advocates for working families, issued a report estimating that a single adult in the Sacramento region needed an annual income of $26,560 to support a modest standard of living. That jumped to $69,306 for a family with two working parents and two children.

Since the report was issued, food and gasoline costs have gone through the roof. As a result, Robert Matheson, 38, and his fiancee, Rachel Green, 23, say they just can't cover all their expenses anymore.

The couple, who were sitting on a bench waiting for the lunch bell at Loaves & Fishes earlier this week, said they both have jobs – he provides elder care 35 hours a week; she works as a cashier at a hardware store. Already, they'd been barely scraping by. Less milk and meat. Lots of cheap pasta. No more movies, not even rentals.

Then Green's hours got cut.

So there they were, on a sunny April morning, counting on a free meal to try to make it to the next paycheck.

"Our wages don't actually cover everything, they really don't," Matheson said. He paused. "They used to."

Tasha Norris, director of the WIND Youth Center for homeless youth in North Sacramento, said she senses a rising level of desperation among many of the new families her organization sees.

One family, Norris said, had rented the same home for 17 years. Then the bank foreclosed, and they were given notice that they had 30 days to get out.

"Your heart goes out to those folks," she said. "They don't have any abilities to survive out there on the streets."

Suzi deFosset, executive director of the Gathering Inn in downtown Roseville, said her shelter has taken in 20 percent more people in the past few months than at the same time last year.

"We are at capacity and that is unheard of at this time of the year," she said.

On Tuesday night, 60 people slept in the shelter – technically, the maximum number of spots is 50.

more at link
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/891737.html

[glowing]

1. When are the papers going to actually report that this is a Depression.

New families on the streets.. new faces.. this is cutting into people who don't know how to survive.. Can we finally start calling it what it is.

[area51]

2. Agreed. (n/t)

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. difference between depression and recession is

of no small comfort to anyone standing in a food line. :scared:

However, here goes:
Recession :
"marked by a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decrease
of less than a 10% over more than one quarter of a year."
Recession tends to be measured in quarters of a year.

Depression:
" measured as a decrease in the GDP of 10% or higher in a given year.
Thus, IF the GDP has steadily decreased and the year totals show a 10% or greater reduction in the GDP, then the year is considered to have been a depression."

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/

Basically, people have to be homeless, broke, and standing in food lines
for 12 months before we can call it a Depression.
Ain't that just dandy.....

Bush :dunce: hopefully will be out of office before we can pin that legacy on him.