A year ago, I wrote an article about how difficult it was for many Jewish families to survive the economic recession we were facing.
He is a father with 11 children, at the time unemployed, with prospects of at best becoming underemployed.
Here’s what I received on my email me this week:
“I wanted to share with you about how things with my family have progressed since that article was written. In the article I mentioned that finacnial assistane from JCS and Ahavas Yisroel were instrumental in keeping our family financially afloat. A month or two after the article appeared, we were told by our financial counselor at JCS that as I was not making sufficient efforts to find a job, in their opinion, our financial assistance was going to be curtailed shortly. I find this hard to understand as I had been working with an employment counselor at JCS as well as with JobLink and was folllowing all of their advice. I asked my employment counselor about what I was being told. He agreed with me that I was doing what I should and explained that JCS was being strained because of all those who were turning to it for financial assistance and they were looking for reasons to drop people whom they had been helping for a while. So, less than two months later we were told we could no longer expect any nelp from JCS. As Ahavas Yisroel’s assistance was contingent on our receiving help from JCS as well, were then cut off from any further communal financial aid. Our debts started to rise rapidly and at the moment we have more than $15,000 in dept to utility companies, banks, for being overdrawn, family, doctors and friends.
As a result in June, we were forced to move out of the home were renting as we could no longer pay the rent. Since that time I have been nomadic moving from friends to relatives within Baltmore as I continue to do the work I had, as well as pursue other ventures. My wife and children were able to find shelter livingi n a home provided by relatives in a different state 1,000 miles away. They are two hours from the nearest Jewish community. The kids who are with her who are school age are having to be home schooled now., putting strain on my wife’s schedule as she is also taking college courses online in order to improve her chances of finding a decent paying job. As I cannot aford to travel to see them for over three months, we speak all the time by phone.
As indicated I have continued in a part-time job I had a year ago, and I have picked up some private tutoring jobs. Additionally, a startup business with which I was involved then has continued to make real progress towards profitability, though we are still a few months away from that. I have also recently become associated with a local business in a field in which I have a Master’s Degree. At the moment I am mainly trying to do sales for them, an area in which I have very limited experience. My hope is that I will drum up enough business so that I can use my Master’s degree as well there.
The separation from family is obviously very difficult for all involved. We all hope it will not last much longer. I am very concerned about paying for Pesach and where we will be for Pesach, as there do not appear to be any easy answers to those questions.
I try to take a productive outlook at the situation, which is not always easy. Venturing out into new areas to try to make money has blessed me with some wonderful new experiences. In my new business venture, I have gotten to meet many people in Baltimore’s African-American community, and have worked with some of the leading politicians of Baltimore. This has been a wonderful experience. Moving into the field of sales has enabled me to overcome issues of shyness and other fears I have, so that has been great.  But even greater will be the time when my family is whole again, living together in a home we can afford, paying our bills and being part of the community fully.”
Certainly, it must be said that organizations such as JCS, Ahavas Yisroel and JobLink work with the utmost dedication to improve the lives of all of their clients.
Life is, however, complicated, and there aren’t any prescribed time frames when things will get better. Every one is on life’s clock differently.
For the writer of this letter, we feel from the tone of his letter that he is pointed in the right direction, and actually seems stronger than he did a year ago.
This is a real look, however, of what is going on out there. And we continue to hear of people who are months if not over a year unemployed.
We hope like our friend who wrote to us, that more and more people have the fortitutude to work their way through to back to the “normlacy” of a paycheck,  and the self respect that a job gives a person. Any help you can give your friend, your neighbor, the Associated, JobLink, Ahavas Yisroel or even the family next door is a wonderful way to get people re-started.