I'm using my first post to tell you all why we donate, volunteer, and fight...

[Mossbeach]

FROM 70K TO FOOD BANK: ONE FAMILY'S STRUGGLE

Story Highlights:
-Patricia Guerrero went from making $70,000 to drawing unemployment checks

-Desperate to feed her kids, she recently went to a food bank for the first time

-Expert says charities are reporting a rise in middle-class families at food banks

-Guererro: "It just happened so fast. It happened in a matter of -- what -- two months"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/27/foodbank.family/index.html

ALTADENA, California (CNN) -- When she was laid off in February, Patricia Guerrero was making $70,000 a year. Weeks later, with bills piling up and in need of food for her family, this middle-class mother did something she never thought she would do: She went to a food bank.
It was Good Friday, and a woman helping her offered to pay her utility bill.

"It brought tears to my eyes, and I sat there and I cried. I was like, 'This is really where I'm at?' " she told CNN. "I go 'no way;' this is true. This is reality. This is the stuff you see on TV. It was hard. It was very hard."

Guerrero is estranged from her husband and raising her two young children. She's already burned through her savings to help make ends meet, and is drawing unemployment checks. She has had to take extreme measures to pay for her interest-only mortgage of $2,500 a month. In fact, her mother moved in with her to help pay the bills.

Guerrero even applied for food stamps, but was denied.

"I never used the system. I've been working since I was 15-and-a-half. I needed it now and it turned me down," she said.

Stories like Guerrero's are becoming more common as middle-class Americans feel the pinch of an economic downturn, rising gas prices and a housing crunch, especially in a state like California that has been rocked by foreclosures.

Daryl Brock, the executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank in California's San Bernardino and Riverside counties, said his organization supplies food to more than 400 charities in metro Los Angeles, from homeless shelters to soup kitchens to an array of food banks. While the majority of people they help are working poor families, he said they have seen some major changes.

In the last 12 to 18 months, Brock said, the agencies he supplies have begun seeing more middle-class families coming to their doors.

"Our agencies have said there is an increasing number of people coming to them for help," Brock told CNN by phone. "Their impression was that these were not people they normally would have seen before. They seemed to be better dressed. They seemed to have better cars and yet they seemed to be in crisis mode."

He added, "The only thing they can do is give us anecdotal evidence that they think it's because of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and the housing crisis."

A former loan processor, Guerrero knows all about that, although so far she has been able keep her house.

She used her tax refund to help pay many of her bills for the first two months, but now that money's gone.

She says she's now in a middle-class "no-man's-land."

"It just happened so fast. It happened in a matter of -- what -- two months," she said.

She's eager to get back to work and to hold onto her home until the market turns. But for this single mom, every day it becomes harder to hang on.

"It's just depressing," she said. "For me, I just don't want to get out of bed, but I have to. That's my hardest thing. I have to."





Should this be happening in a country as rich as ours? Ladies and Gentlemen, please, please. please do what you can to ensure that on November 4th, we put an end to this reign of right wing economic terror by doing what you can. And thank you for all you do!

[fasttense]

1. My husband was making over 45k when he was laid off

because his company lost the contract. It's been 4 months now and he hasn't even had an interview, though he has sent out over 200 resumes.

It's the lost jobs thats dragging this economy into collapse.

[whitewomenforobama]

2. I'm on the other side of the table right now

I'm fortunate to have a job, part of which is hiring. It's heartbreaking going through not only just the sheer numbers of resumes we get now compared with what used to come in, but the quality of resumes and length of time so many applicants have been out of work. We used to get maybe 20-30 applicants, now we get 100-150. It was rare that I used to see resumes of people not currently employed, and in fact non-employment used to be seen as somewhat of a resume liability for applicants, where as now it's almost the norm. It used to be that most people were only looking to move up from their current position, now they're just looking for something to pay the bills. I'm seeing so many highly-educated, highly-skilled, professional, experienced, intelligent people in my pool now, from all types of industry, not just the one I'm in, trying to just find something, anything. It seems like we're seeing the most applicants with real estate and banking backgrounds, and an increase in medical administrators too. I'll admit it's nice as the recruiter to have access to such a large and highly-qualified pool, but far more than that, it's just heartbreaking, and reminds me every Monday I wake up cranky about having to go back to work, how very lucky I am to have work to go back to.

[1corona4u]

4. Same here....2 years, 300+ resumes, 4 shitty bogus interviews

who thought I would take less once I got there. NOT.

[zeemike]

3. That is a good reason for me...Welcome to DU

You will find many like minded people here that agree with your goals of putting an end to the right wing economic terrorism.

[intheflow]

5. Ms. Guerrero, do not feel bad about not getting food stamps.

I'm a single person who makes less than $12K/yr before taxes, but I was also turned down because I make too much money. The aid programs look at your income and your rent, but not utility bills, other debt payments, or even (ironically) how much you pay for food a month. The social safety net really has become a punitive system under Repuke leadership.