Boulder County sees its highest caseloads for food assistance

Sara Moran has managed to scrape by the past few years, working a series of low-paying jobs to make the rent and praying she doesn't get sick while she struggles to find decent health insurance.

But last fall, scraping by turned to scraping bottom when Moran's employer, a Postnet outlet in Lafayette, closed up shop.

The 34-year-old Louisville woman, suddenly out of work, tried and failed to find a job at a clothing store at FlatIron Crossing mall. She took what baby-sitting and house-sitting gigs she could find. Meanwhile, the cupboards in her home went from stocked to empty and Moran faced the real possibility that she wasn't going to be able to afford basic groceries.

"This summer I found myself in a real bind," she said. "I can survive on $1,000 a month but I can't survive on less than that."

Moran paid a visit to Sister Carmen Community Center in Lafayette and walked away with a box of groceries from the food bank. The center also gave her money to pay for a critical car repair and helped put her get in touch with county social services about getting rent assistance.

"It has helped so much," Moran said of Sister Carmen. "There's a huge need in Boulder County -- there's a huge need for something to get people on their feet."

'Invisible' problem

Moran is just one of thousands of Boulder County residents who have had to resort to accepting food donations or cash assistance to make ends meet, as the grinding recession that began more than two years ago shows few signs of abating.

Frank Alexander, director of the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services, said today's weak economy is by far the deepest and most widespread economic downturn he has ever seen.

The number of food assistance cases in the county has shot up from 6,538 in 2007 to 13,471 last month. Overall, the combined number of people receiving food assistance and Medicaid benefits skyrocketed from a little more than 28,000 three years ago to nearly 41,000 today.

"These are the highest caseloads

Louisville resident Sara Moran loads food into her car after receiving an allotment at the Sister Carmen Community Center in Lafayette on Wednesday. Moran has worked a series of low-paying jobs in recent years, but was recently laid off from a Postnet outlet in Lafayette. With her finances getting tight, she sought help from Sister Carmen. "I found myself in a real bind," she said. ( MARTY CAIVANO )

Terry Benjamin, executive director of the Emergency Family Assistance Association in north Boulder, said his organization has given away 42 percent more food to needy families this year over last. The number of clients coming in for help -- with rent, utilities, or food -- leaped from 3,278 in fiscal year 2009 to 4,178 in the last fiscal year, which ended in June.

"I've seen a few recessions and this one seems to have taken hold of our low-income families in a deeper way," he said. "People are struggling mightily."

And for a longer time, said Terry Tedeschi, development director at Longmont-based

Forrest Patterson, of Boulder, loads his backpack full of groceries after shopping at the Emergency Family Assistance Association on Thursday. ( Jeremy Papasso )

She has noticed a shift away from people seeking "episodic" help to those seeking aid on a more continuous basis.

"We're seeing more people and we're seeing more people who need food longer," she said.

Community Food Share distributed 6.6 million meals last year -- much of it to various food banks and soup kitchens throughout the area -- and expects to distribute 7.25 million meals this year in Boulder and Broomfield counties. It put a value of nearly $10 million on the food it distributed in 2009.

And while the challenges in both counties are very real, Tedeschi said, they don't always get the attention they should because many of those who are suffering -- minimum-wage workers or the underemployed -- tend to fall into the category demographers and social scientists label the "working poor."

"Most of these people are working people and so poverty is effectively invisible in this community," she said.

That's especially true when tragedy befalls a family that a year ago may have been seen as perfectly stable, said Sister Carmen CEO Suzanne Crawford. They can keep up appearances for a while, but as their savings dwindle they find that for the first time they have trouble putting food on the table.

"We're seeing people who had jobs and were self-sufficient who lost jobs and hours," Crawford said. "Or they went from a two-income household to a one-income household and they can't do it without assistance."

Funding cuts

Making matters worse is that while the rolls of the needy in Boulder County swell, funding to the primary agency that provides assistance to the community hasn't kept pace.

Jennifer Eads, self-sufficiency and community support division director at the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services, said basic services provided by her department are underfunded by $1.8 million.

That doesn't include cuts that have been made to child welfare programs, the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program and the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, she said.

In June, the housing and human services agency closed its Louisville office as part of a money-saving move. Staff at the agency has had trouble processing the wave of applications for assistance that have come in, leading to a backlog and a lag in the time it takes people to receive their benefits.

"It's tiring," Eads said. "How do you train for a marathon every year?"

Alexander doesn't expect the situation to get better for a while. Every month since May 2008, more people have applied for benefits or assistance in Boulder County and that upward trend doesn't appear to be breaking.

"I think we need to be prepared to handle the need for the next three years," he said.

Appeal to voters

The good news, according to the county's human services leaders, is that Boulder County is as well positioned as any other place to deal with an ongoing social crisis.

A strong network of nonprofits serves the county's residents, sharing with each other emergency services and inventory, while working closely with the housing and human services department to steer families to appropriate resources.

At the Emergency Families Assistance Association on Yarmouth Avenue in Boulder, 43 families had signed in to obtain services on a recent weekday -- and it was only 2:30 p.m. Cans of beans were neatly stacked next to cans of Spaghetti-Os in the facility's immaculately maintained food bank. Fresh produce donated by Whole Foods filled bins at one end of the room, while a walk-in cooler held organic milk donated by Horizon Dairy.

A volunteer helped a client "shop" for groceries, giving her advice as she chose from a selection of frozen meat cuts and off-brand pasta.

"We have the best prices in town," joked Benjamin, EFAA's executive director.

This November, the county's voters will have to decide whether they want to help organizations like EFAA and Sister Carmen continue to provide basic services to people in need.

Ballot Issue 1A will ask them if they are willing to raise the mill levy -- equivalent to $21 a year in property tax on a $300,000 house -- to backfill funding cuts to human services programs countywide.

It's estimated the measure would raise $5.4 million over five years.

Boulder County Commissioner Cindy Domenico, who pushed to put the issue on the ballot, said she realizes that many people who are struggling might not feel able to shoulder higher taxes. But she said the benefit to larger society is more than worth it.

"This is a difficult time to ask people to approve a tax," she said. "But this is so vital, now is the time to ask."

Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389 or aguilarj@dailycamera.com.