26,000 families slip into poverty

By Dan Chapman and John Perry
jgperry@ajc.com


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The recession’s victims increasingly look like you and your neighbors.

Nearly 26,000 metro Atlanta families — with two parents and at least one kid — dropped below the poverty line in 2008, up a chilling 19 percent from the year before.

And the number of families receiving food stamps and other bare-bones public assistance rose 21 percent in the 20-county metro area, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released today.

And that was before things got really bad in 2009.

“In past recessions you could always say those were other people who were hit hard, people who didn’t work as hard as you, or had different values,” said Bill Bolling, executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. “This recession it’s somebody in your neighborhood, your company or, probably, your congregation.”

He added, “I’ve been doing this work for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Yet after a two-year drumbeat of bad economic news, it shouldn’t come as any great surprise that the American family, collectively, is suffering. Unemployment regionwide stands at 10.4 percent. It’s expected to rise.

More than 115,000 metro homes, most in the suburbs, will likely be listed for foreclosure by year’s end, up 47 percent from last year. And, last week, Georgia’s 24th bank in little more than a year was shut down, yet another victim of the building and real-estate morass.

MUST Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit in Cobb and Cherokee counties, helped 29,000 people last year. Requests for assistance there are up 25 percent this year.

“It’s no longer just hourly wage workers. These are professionals — from bankers to people with master’s and Ph.D.’s,” said Annette Lee, the agency’s resource development coordinator. “We are seeing more and more people who are above the poverty line.”

For now. Poverty is a family of four getting by on $22,025 a year, says the federal government. Across Georgia, 82,000 married families slipped into poverty last year, a 15 percent increase, according to the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey. Family safety nets fray even further as whole families grow poorer. Without a mom, brother or uncle to rely upon, the poor head in droves to food banks, ministries and welfare offices. The Sullivan Center in southwest Atlanta tallied more than 110 applications for rental and utility assistance last week. In two hours.

Many of the newly unemployed must make the uncomfortable choice between keeping the lights on or a roof over their heads. “You don’t want to be homeless so you tend to pay your rent instead of your utility bill,” said Eileen Parker, case manager with the nonprofit Sullivan Center. “We’ve got a different group of people that have never asked for help before.”