Working Poor Reach Out For Help Jobs Aren’T Keeping Families From Agencies, Shelters

A disturbing trend is settling like frost on Spokane this winter: Scores of educated, wage-earning parents are finding a job doesn’t keep them out of a homeless shelter.

They’re increasingly appearing at social service offices, food banks and churches.

They struggle to keep the lights on, stock cupboards, wear work shoes that pass muster with the boss. Some are too broke to do the laundry.

The trials of the working poor aren’t new. But increasing numbers of employed people asking for aid, on the verge of crisis, are alarming the social service community.

“The most surprising thing is I look at these families and realize this could be me,” said Peggy Sammons, a case worker at Our Place Ministries in the West Central neighborhood.

“A couple of hard months and there I am.”

Restrictions in welfare and food stamp programs are sending frustrated families to nonprofit agencies and churches for everything from bus tokens to new underwear.

While no agency keeps definitive statistics, a troubling picture is taking shape:

Nearly a third of families using the Spokane Food Bank in 1998 were headed by working people, according to a survey of 1,700 people served. Officials say the trend is continuing this year.

At Our Place, a church-run food and clothing bank, the number of working families asking for help jumped from 326 in 1997 to 474 in 1998.

The Salvation Army’s social service office helped more than 5,500 people last year who hadn’t needed assistance before. Those numbers indicate that families who previously made ends meet are now struggling, officials said.

Those who bottomed out went to homeless shelters.

Statistics gathered by the city in 1998 show that a quarter of the homeless were working when they could no longer afford a place to live.

Four out of five homeless adults graduated from high school. Social workers say many also have taken community college classes.

The Union Gospel Mission provided emergency shelter last year to more than 800 men who said they’d been working the previous year.

What’s causing the problem?

Spokane poverty rates exceed state, regional and federal levels, while wages lag behind state, regional and federal averages.

Rents remain out of reach for some, and there are more than 800 families on waiting lists for subsidies. A minimum-wage worker must toil 77 hours a week to afford an average two-bedroom apartment in Spokane, according to a recent study by the National Low-income Housing Consortium.

But the biggest culprit, social workers say, is welfare reform.

WorkFirst’s aggressive get-to-work push and expanded support services resulted in 1,400 Spokane County families dropping welfare between July 1997 and September 1998, the most recent month for which statistics were available.

More than 40 percent of the 5,940 Spokane County families who remain on welfare have at least one parent working part time, the state Department of Social and Health Services says.

Gov. Gary Locke and state officials cite similar figures as proof the program’s a success.

“If you look at the cold, hard numbers, we’ve been successful in two ways,” said Terry Covey, DSHS administrator for WorkFirst in northeast Washington.

“People have gotten off assistance and into the labor market way more than ever before … and we’ve been successful in changing the culture of what people thought welfare recipients were like. Now, they’re working.”

The challenge, Covey said, is to sustain the results.

But that’s only half the story, social workers say.

“We’re putting people into minimum-wage jobs with a household of responsibilities and expecting them to pay fair market rents, food, clothing and unexpected bills,” said Debbie Emery, social services director for the Salvation Army in Spokane.

As of Jan. 1, the average wage of people in Washington who went from welfare to work was $6.36 an hour, according to the Department of Employment Security.

That’s less than half the wage University of Washington researchers say is necessary for a single mother with one child to get by without needing public assistance.

Keeping steady work is even harder, say frustrated job-hunters.

Brenda, 27, said her minimumwage shifts at a Spokane dry-cleaning business have dwindled since October from full-time to barely part-time work.

When her husband, a house painter, was laid off in November, they pawned electronics equipment, cut off phone service and moved from a house to a dingy, $230-a-month West Central studio apartment.

Job hunting has been fruitless because most employers just laid off seasonal employees, she said. “The landlord’s knocking at the door, the bills are due. Nothing stops except the paychecks,” said Brenda, who wouldn’t give her last name.

After three months of scraping by, she feels she’s hit bottom. She reluctantly returned to Our Place last week for a bag of food.

While parents struggle to remain afloat, children may be learning other lessons.

At Holmes Elementary, West Central’s neighborhood school, nine out of 10 students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

As their parents seek jobs under WorkFirst, Principal Denise Sandbo said many of her 640 students are adopting new, positive attitudes about work. Students used to give blank stares - or say “rock star” - when asked about future careers.

“Now they’re saying `electrician,’ `builder’ - that they want to fix computers,” Sandbo said.

“There’s certainly some negative things (about welfare reform), but also positive things. (Students) are learning good work ethics. They see the result of earning a paycheck.”

Many of the parents Sandbo meets glow with newfound self-confidence.

“The way they appear, there’s a more professional look and a happier attitude that says, `I’m working now,”’ she said.

But a few blocks away, at Our Place, Sister Marcia Schrapps has seen a change in the kind of people she serves.

Now, uneducated teen moms are asking for help alongside well-mannered people in their 30s, with clean fingernails and good diction.

“They’re proud,” Schrapps said. “They want help, they need help, but they don’t want to ask for it.”

Schrapps and others doing frontline social work fear this winter’s trickle may turn into a flood.

“Every year, we see another group of people considered medium-income families slip down to poverty,” said Emery, who runs the Salvation Army’s shelter in West Central.

“The gap between the middle class and poverty is getting closer.”

Graphic: Who’s on welfare?

This sidebar appeared with the story: SURVEY OF HOMELESS The city of Spokane’s Human Services Department questioned 282 homeless people last year. Here is what the survey found: Twenty-five percent were working when they became homeless; nearly 70 percent of those families said the work was steady. The average income of homeless families was $756 a month, nearly the amount earned from a full-time, minimum-wage job. More than 80 percent of adults reported having a high school diploma or GED. Fifty-four percent said an adult in the household lacked health insurance; 51 percent said a family member had serious drug or alcohol problems. Forty-four percent had been turned over to a collection agency in the last year.