Unemployment is almost as certain as death and taxes. However, in Blaine County, providers of services such as food and housing assistance say they are seeing more people in their offices who have never before had to ask for help.
"These are people who used to be our volunteers, who used to be business owners," said Jeanne Liston, executive director of the Hunger Coalition.
Now, she said, these former professionals have nowhere to turn, and are having to come to the coalition in a different context.
"They're completely desperate—they're like deer in the headlights," she said, adding that many of the new clients almost don't know how to ask for help because they've never had to.
Nancy Smith, program director for the Blaine County Housing Authority, said she's noticed the same trend. Even though the authority's goal is to find affordable housing for its clients, Smith said she is approached for employment assistance by two to three people a week.
"I think that because we're a public entity, the public has been approaching me," she said. "The people affected are almost stunned. It's very difficult to ask for help, because they've never asked."
Idaho's unemployment rate was a record high 9.7 percent in March, the last month for which Idaho Department of Labor data were available. March's high number followed four straight months of record high unemployment, and statewide, there are more than four unemployed workers for every job opening in Idaho.
Blaine County's unemployment rate stood at 9.4 percent, slightly down from a high 10.4 percent in February. Liston said she's seen a corresponding jump in need over the past few months.
"It's been a difficult winter for a lot of families," she said.
Of course, much of the decline has been attributed to the decline in the construction industry, and Department of Labor projections show that the demand for workers such as roofers, painters, cement masons and carpenters will continue to decline over the next seven years. Demand for carpenters in particular is expected to decline by 112 percent by 2018, according to a department report.
But Smith said she's not just seeing carpenters and seasonal laborers in her office.
"It crosses over all professional trades and all work sectors, the decrease in work," she said. "They are professionals, trades people and seasonal people as well."
The influx in former professionals is partly due to the reported 650 small businesses that shut their doors statewide in 2010, leaving 5,300 fewer jobs in their wake. But Smith and Liston said some families have been in need for years and have hesitated to ask for it.
"These are professional people," Smith said. "[Need] is very hard to admit to anyone, even themselves."
Liston said many of her new clients have tried to ride out the recession, but are now buried under crushing debt with nowhere to turn.
"So many of them have held out for the last two and a half years," she said. "By the time they get to us, they've depleted their savings, they've tapped into friends and family."
Liston said that often, her clients hold off because they are underemployed (holding a job that they are overqualified for) rather than unemployed. Therefore, these clients assume they are not as much in need as other families.
But once they've lost their homes and their jobs and racked up credit card debt in an attempt to make ends meet, Liston said, they are forced to ask for help.
Smith said she's seen an increase in the desperation of her clients and a decline in their sense of self-worth.
"I used to have three to five calls a month, and now I get two to three calls a week," she said.
Though the Department of Labor calls for continued slow job growth through the rest of the year, Smith and Liston say there are ways the community can come together and help pull everyone, including former professionals, through the current climate.
Liston said many of the new clients don't know how to re-enter the job market, something she discovered when she attempted to hire a food bank supervisor.
"We thought, 'This would be very fitting for a lot of our clients,' but we were really surprised when a lot of them didn't apply," she said.
When she asked her clientele why they hadn't applied, they told her they were "completely overwhelmed" by the challenges of creating a cover letter and résumé for the first time.
The coalition now holds basic computer classes and walks clients through the résumé creation process.
Smith said she thinks the answer to the valley's problems may come through computers as well, through a program known as a "time bank," through which people can barter services such as landscaping or driving for other services or meals.
The program could also help the unemployed with regaining a sense of self-worth, Smith said.
"Getting up in the morning and not leaving for work is the beginning of a bad day," she said.
While Smith said she hopes the community will rally together and support those in need, the only thing to do may be just to wait the recession out.
"We just need to hang in there and hold on," she said.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Blaine County residents accept food assistance from Hunger Coalition staff and volunteers last year.
