A detour on the road to retirement

They’ve never asked for a handout and till now never needed one.  “Bob” and “Mary” have that expression in their eyes, the look of “we were headed toward our preferred future when a very different future just broadsided us from out of nowhere.”

He’d had a comfortable job and a growing retirement fund.  An illness forced him into a way-too-early retirement.  He still has his retirement, but can’t touch it for several more years.  Unable any longer to handle the skilled work he had been doing for so long, he has found a thirty-some-hour a week job without benefits. 

He’s thinking about going back to college to get a master’s degree in a different field, yet isn’t sure how to support his family in the process.  And by the time he graduates?  Though age discrimination isn’t allowed, it is hard to hide the fact that he is early-mid-fifties, that black hole of an age category between too-old-to-hire and too-young-to-retire.

Mary was a stay-at-home mom who kept busy with various church and service activities after the kids grew older.  When Bob’s illness came on, she started looking for work thinking her general college degree could be of some use.  However that was just when the economy took a swan dive and all she could come up with was a part-time barely-above-minimum-wage job, also without “bennies”. 

As they open up about their struggles, I ask about health insurance.  This is way past the usual questions, but I sense they need to talk. 

“After Bob lost his company insurance, we checked into OHP (the Oregon Health Plan), but it is a totally random lottery” (for getting into it that is, except for minors).  And Bob’s pre-existing would only be covered if he was in a group plan.  Don’t the new laws change the pre-existing requirements, I ask?  Well, yes, now, but now it is either health insurance or everything else.  They can’t afford both.

What about extended family?  “My father died years ago,” Bob said.  “My mother lives nearby and does okay, but she can’t help us.  I’ve got a brother who is on disability.  Mary’s parents live [out-of-state] and haven’t talked much with us since …”

We sit quietly for a few seconds until I manage to shift topics.  I explain how our food program works.  We’re open three days a week – Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays 1-4 pm.  They can come any day we are open for produce and bread and three times in a six-month period for an emergency food box.

They keep their eyes low, rarely allowing direct contact with mine.  I ask for their identification, not required, though we ask anyway.  It helps, especially with the majority of our clients not speaking English as their primary language.  That is not an concern with Bob and Mary, though the official ID ensures greater accuracy on the part of the intaker.  I type in their address from his driver’s license and get their names, ages, birthdates.

“Anyone else in your household?  Kids?”  It affects how much food we can provide for them – 3-5 days of food or about 20 pounds per person.

An older daughter found a job in Seattle back four years ago and is doing okay.  A son in college lives at home.  I can provide food for the son as well, I tell them, and we add his information to the database.  I mark the boxes concerning ethnicity (Caucasian) and household relationship and ask them if they want to visit our clothing room as well as get the food.  Maybe we’ll look and see, they respond finally giving me solid eye contact.  Bob could use a decent pair of pants for an upcoming interview – he’s still looking around for a full-time job or additional work.

I explain our gently-used clothing room is better stocked for women and infants than men and children and throw out my standard crack about gently-used men’s clothing being an oxymoron.  I am awarded the typical response – smiles all around.  They relax a bit.  When we have enough clothes, I explain, we allow four items per family member, otherwise just two.  I think we are back up to four now, but I can’t really remember and wander off into useless trivia that even I don’t care about.

We’re about done with the intake interview.  It doesn’t usually get this involved and we have a crowded waiting room, but I sense they need this slower pace.  Asking for help is just not in their emotional DNA.  They keep telling me they are used to donating food, clothing and money, not asking for it.  “I understand,” I say, and I mean it.

Their savings are depleted and the inadequate income from their jobs leaves a gap that grows by the month, in spite of their best efforts.  They really can’t see past the next few weeks, but maybe we can help them keep going one emergency food box at a time until he can land that extra job or their ship comes in. 

“Come on down.” I lead them out of the intake room and down the cemented slope to our food pantry. “One of our volunteers will walk you through.  Thanks for coming in.

An Invitation to Breakfast

For those who live in the greater Portland, OR, area, I am inviting you to breakfast on March 30 to hear about our work in the Northeast Emergency Food Program.  Among those sharing will be a couple of our clients, one of which I highlighted in the previous post.  

This event, our 1st Annual Sustainers Breakfast, will be held at the Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, 1535f NE 17th Avenue, Portland, 7:30-8:30 am.  We'll also be hearing from Patti Whitney-Wise of the Oregon Hunger Task Force, and the band, "Homemade Jam."  John Elizalde, our former program director, will MC. 

Jeni Broussard, my assistant, is arranging some great displays to emphasize our theme "Spreading the Net."  Our goal is to expand what is already a great network to keep up with the need - we gave half a million pounds of food to 11,000 people last year.

Consider hosting a table of your friends, coworkers, or church members.  Email Chris Siems at csiems@emoregon.com or call him at 503-221-1054 to reserve a seat.

 

Headed for his own home

It was 3:00 am and frigid with a five mile walk on a fractured leg, but he was warm and happy inside.  He was going home.

Brad and Cindy had come into our Northeast Emergency Food Program toward the end of summer, their eyes red and hazed with exhaustion and hopelessness.  Seeing the toddler in Cindy’s arm, we asked her what they needed most.  “Diapers,” she whispered.  Of all the days, our supply was totally gone. 

Way short on volunteers that day, we had decided to keep the clothing room closed.  But when Brad and Cindy arrived, Jeni, my assistant, quickly threw it open.  Brad had lost his job months before, then the home they were renting, then all their belongings were stolen from the place they’d been stored.  Just about everything was gone. 

Mabel, an occasional client of ours, had opened her home to them and they were sharing the sofa.  Mabel, who lives close to our previous location, still comes in once or twice a year when finances get too tight to manage.  She brought them on the bus that day to see if we could help them.

We did as much as we could, except for the diapers.  With them loaded up with a five-day supply of food and whatever clothes we could find to fit the three of them, they all headed out the door.  About to run an errand in my pickup, I broke policy and offered to help get them home.  With the baby, there was no way they were even going to make it to the bus stop four blocks away.  So I took Mabel and all the food and clothing, while Brad, Cindy and June rode the bus.

Brad had gone to college on a basketball scholarship, a dream that had ended before the first season began when his leg was fractured in practice and, without the scholarship, he’d had to drop out of school.  He’d drifted to the West Coast and wound up in Portland getting paid disassembling cars until he was laid off and life spiraled down.

After Mabel brought them to us, he came in again until he’d reached his quota (3 times in 6 months).  One day concerned as to how they were doing, I went looking for them.  I knew where Mabel lived because of that earlier drop off.  She said they’d stayed with her a month and had moved into one of those cheap hotels over on 82^nd.  I found the place – “cheap” meant everything but the price: $1,600-a-month for a rat-infested mini apartment.  The one bedroom they sub rented to a friend while they slept on the living room floor, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom completing the place.  But at least it was warm and dry as winter came on. 

Brad, ever looking for a better place to live, had no money to pay the first and last month rent, so they kept eking by five days at a time.  With the friend splitting costs, Brad made up the rest with unemployment benefits and selling his blood for $64 a week.  Nothing was left for food or diapers.  They received food stamps, but those didn’t last the full month and they didn’t cover diapers.  Brad kept looking for work and resorted to begging on the streets on more than one occasion. 

He started coming in to volunteer for us.  Through telling their story, I’d already brought in a lot of diapers, so I told them to get some – on the house!  He made it clear he wasn’t volunteering to get, but gratefully took my offer anyway.

One day out looking for work, he was crossing at an intersection.  A motorist, texting, looked up too late and hit him.  An officer saw the whole thing, couldn’t stop it from happening.  Brad showed up the next day we were open, walking with a brace, his leg fractured in two places and with permanent nerve damage.  He’d come in to volunteer, walking two miles each way.

Funds were getting tighter.  Unable to sell his blood because of the injury, he started running out of money before the rent was due.  He called me one day, his voice quietly desperate.  “No,” I said, “we don’t have resources to help with rent, but I’ll see what I can do.”  I shared his story with a friend, who supplied the $120 they were short to pay their rent the next day. 

Someone called and asked if we knew anyone who needed a lighted artificial tree for Christmas.  I knew just the home for that tree – June‘s eyes lit up as much as that tree did.

Days before Christmas, they hit bottom.  Unable to come up with $300 for the next five days, the owner said they’d have to leave.  They pleaded to no avail.  I found someone else who could cover the gap.  It was the first time I’d seen Cindy smile.  They were good through Christmas.

A long-time NEFP volunteer took them a Fred Meyer gift card on Christmas Eve.  Then they got word of a duplex for rent where they wouldn’t need the last month’s rent and the owner would give them time to catch up.  The owner called me to verify their story.  Two days before the end of the year, my sons and I moved the family and their friend to that lovely, fixed-up two-bedroom with a fenced-in yard in a quiet SE neighborhood.  All their belongings fit in my pickup and my son’s car.  Except for the friend, who gladly took a bus.

The one job Brad had found was a one-night-a-week stint as a hotel desk clerk just down the street from their old hotel.  It was five miles from where they now lived.  But Brad was thrilled to walk the distance.

Brad, still looking for work, is back to selling his blood.  Now settled in their clean rental, they’re almost keeping up – with unemployment benefits having been extended.  June, drinking milk like crazy, is almost out of diapers, and at 19 months is growing “like a weed.”  I miss seeing him come in now that they’ve moved further away.  I keep praying he’ll find the right job, one accessible by bus.  And I give thanks that Mabel brought them to the right place.

Names of all clients have been changed.