CLOSE-UP
Class
truggle
PHIL JACOBS
Managing Editor
r- ill hey've got a mortgage payment
for a four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac.
Their car has automatic door locks and
cruise control. Their oldest child is a
sophomore in college. Their gold card is
maxed out, and suddenly they find
themselves sinking in a sea of bills.
Sound like it's not happening to anyone
familiar? Social workers say we won't
have to look far to find someone we know
who is hurting.
Jon can tell us all about what it's like to
be middle class and on the edge. So can
Barry. But neither wanted his last name
used for fear he'd be laughed at by the
Jewish community. Both men said it
would be easier for them to admit, like
Magic Johnson did last week, that they
tested HIV-positive rather than that they
are in financial trouble.
For Jon, an unemployed engineer, mak-
ing ends meet is an emotional challenge
as well as a financial one. His voice
chokes up and he can barely get out the
words.
"My kids," he struggles to
say."Sometimes I can't face them."
Jon isn't a child abuser; he's a great
father whose roly-poly children play all
over him as he speaks. Lately, he's had
26
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1991
more time than he desires to take them to
school in the morning and pick them up in
the afternoon.
He isn't divorced, he isn't withholding
love from his family. He also isn't
employed.
Jon's benefits carried him through for
awhile. But 11 months and 300 rejected
resumes have gone by, and still no job.
Mortgage payments and car installments
still have to be paid. His wife works a
modest clerical job that brings in a steady
income, but it's not enough.
Now Jon, the man with post-graduate
degrees hanging on his study wall,
couldn't trade one of the laminated brown
mahogany slabs in for a cup of coffee.
What he is doing instead is selling his
high-tech stereo system. It's not because
he's tired of it. He needs the money to
keep his house for another month.
"At first you don't want to let others
know," Jon said. "The real stigma is you
are still thinking about how others will
perceive you. You are wanting to avoid
any type of conflict. You just don't bring it
up. Period. You hide it from people.
"But the real problem is you don't feel
good about yourself," he continued. "I'm
a stable person, but this time I'm losing
ground. It's absolutely like death. You go
through the known psychological steps of
denial. And then you go through an ac-
ceptance phase that this is what is hap-
pening to your life."
Alan Goodman, executive director of
the Jewish Family Service, need look no
further than his agency's waiting room to
see well-dressed people with Fortune 500
resumes asking for help to make their
house payments. Most come from the
sales and service businesses. Many have
donated money to the Jewish Federation,
and they come in bitter that they aren't
getting more in return when they are in
need.
However, with available monies
tightening up, JFS isn't the place to come
for a quick solution. JFS can direct clients
to appropriate county and state social
services that might be available. It can
provide emergency coupons for food and
perhaps some money to get through the
month. But what JFS wants to do is help
clients figure out how they won't need the
agency again.
JFS does this by setting up an in-
dividual plan. After a Jewish man in his
nice suit has to stand in line at a Depart-
ment of Social Services office for