Never been poor, until now

By Charles Sowell  

JANUARY 24, 2010 10:11 a.m. (0)

It took Mark Davis and Donna Stolba about six months to join the ranks of the newly poor in Greenville.

Their story, say social workers, is depressingly familiar.

A year ago they had a combined income of slightly less than $70,000 a year. Last week they arrived at United Ministries asking for money to keep their power turned on.

Except for the few hours a week Stolba can scrape together waiting tables, their sole source of income is food stamps.

“It’s tough,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “I guess we could just sit down and wallow in it (misfortune), but what good would that do?”

About 136,000 South Carolinians are in the same fix. One third of all food stamp recipients in the state have no other income. It is an unprecedented situation, say officials.

Most of the newly poor were middle class before the recession.

And the numbers are going up at an astonishing rate. There were 3,398 more people on food stamps last December in Spartanburg than the December before, state figures show.

In Greenville the increase was 4,986 December to December. That was the second greatest increase in the state, seven less than Horry County’s increase.

The newly poor are flooding relief agencies like United Ministries, the Salvation Army and the state Department of Social Services, said Linda Martin, director of the Office of Family Assistance and a veteran social worker with DSS in Columbia.

And they are coming at a time when DSS is facing unprecedented cutbacks in funding and staff and charitable giving to private relief agencies is at historic lows, Martin said.

Davis and Stolba began their downturn more than a year ago when he was diagnosed with leukemia and had to quit his $18 an hour job as a carpenter with Suitt Construction. With the loss of the job came loss of health insurance.

He has not has his medicine in a year.

“They told me I was in chemical remission,” he said, standing next to Stolba in their bare and studiously clean kitchen. “God knows where I am today since I’ve not seen a doctor in a year either. All I can say about that is they can’t pass the health care bill soon enough for me.”

Six months after Davis had to quit work, Stolba’s hours were cut back at a local grocery store where she made $15 an hour. She quit and took what was supposed to be full-time work waiting tables at a chain restaurant.

That job quickly degenerated to a few hours a week at $2.16 per hour, plus tips. One recent paycheck amounted to $13.

The couple applied for food stamps only recently. They’d been scraping by with help from family members. Their savings went to remodeling parts of the house they recently inherited from her parents.

“We’re really fortunate not to be facing losing the house, too,” Stolba said.

“Pride,” was all Nick would say about why they hadn’t sought help sooner. Finally, with no water in the house and facing a cutoff of their power and sole source of heat the couple went to United Ministries.

“South Carolinians are proud people,” said Rebecca Ragland, director of development for United Ministries in Greenville. “A lot of the people we’re seeing now are people who never applied for help before and they just don’t know what to do.”

She estimated that United Ministries has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of people seeking assistance at the same time there has been about a 30 percent decline in charitable giving to the agency.

Because of the decrease, the agency turned away an average of 48 families a month, Ragland said. At their day shelter the number of visits increased from 60 to 100 per day – mostly women and children.

Every relief agency in Greenville reports sharp rises in requests for help.

Pam Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Greenville Salvation Army, reported her group has seen an increase of 220 percent in requests for food aid from December to December – from 264 to 586.

The Salvation Army often plays a crucial role in keeping people fed in the period between applying for food stamps and actual startup of assistance.

People who were living paycheck to paycheck, or had minimal savings are the ones who will have food stamps as their sole source of income, Ragland said.

“It isn’t just the marginal folks, income-wise, anymore,” she said. “The folks we’re seeing now are the ones who had good jobs a year ago, the jobs that paid $20 an hour.”

“It’s depressing,” Davis said putting a hand on Stolba’s shoulder. “I’d like nothing more than to get on disability and start getting on my feet again.”

The state’s safety net is holding up, Martin said but there was a tone of urgency to her voice when she talked about furloughs and cutbacks in DSS funding.

“I understand the budget realities,” she said. “But this is the time when our caseloads are skyrocketing and our ability to meet a real and growing need is declining.”

She’s done social work all her working life. This has been the most trying time she’s endured.

“And I know its worse for the private aid agencies, the ones we (at DSS) turn to in order to fill in the gaps between applying for aid and getting it.

“Frankly, I don’t know how they manage it and I’m in awe of their dedication. We’ve got the resources of the state and federal money to turn to. Those folks don’t.”

Davis and Stolba planned to marry before he became ill and their world collapsed around them, she said.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do now,” she said. “Just keep on surviving, I suppose.”

Comments

Add New

Leave a Comment
Comments are moderated and may not be posted immediately.
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."