One man’s struggle with poverty mirrors state trend

George, 54, lives in the Emmaus House, a homeless shelter in Newark, along with his 14-year-old granddaughter. He is overwhelmingly large, with a protruding stomach covered by a T-shirt that reads, "I'm not too big, you're too small!"

In 2004, George's wife was diagnosed with heart disease. He retired from a job he held for 25 years as a truck driver for in New Castle to be by her side. He took a string of temporary jobs and layoff hits until, in 2007, he quit working in sanitation at the Perdue Farms chicken slaughterhouse in Milford.

This was the first time George had ever quit a job in his entire life, a move that set in motion a life he never imagined.

He said truckloads of chickens were dumped into a large room at the slaughterhouse. Men called "catchers" would chase after them and, with their bare hands, snap the chickens' necks, killing them instantly. His job was to clean up the remains: chicken feces, blood and intestines.

"It just wasn't for me," George, who requested his last name be withheld, said. "I couldn't do it."

Because he quit and was not laid off, he did not receive unemployment benefits, leaving him without a source of income. He was forced to provide for his granddaughter solely with meager child support checks from her father.

"Her mother was not up to par and her father abused her," George said. "I've never collected unemployment my whole life. Never. I always worked."

That was true, until the economy went sour in October 2008, drying up the job pool available to unskilled workers. George moved himself and his granddaughter into his daughter's house in Newport when the economy slumped.

"Diligently, I was looking for work. Nobody's hiring," he said. "I have a Class B license to drive a truck, and I couldn't find a dump truck job or anything, and they usually hire all the

George then applied for work at K-Mart and Sears, but without success. He resorted to taking job applications at fast-food chains out of desperation.

"I was even willing to work at McDonalds or Burger King," he said. "But they wanted young people."

George found himself with nowhere to go after a rocky relationship with his daughter and her husband, who forced him to move out of their house with his granddaughter, came to a head. They applied to the Emmaus House where they have lived for the past four months. Two weeks ago, George finally found a job as a driver for a bus company in New Castle.

He is planning on moving out of Emmaus House once he saves up enough money.

Consequences of Chrysler's Demise

Last year, many people in Delawareans teetering on the edge of economic survival went under, in step with the economy. In December 2008, a defining moment in Newark's history, the Chrysler plant on South College Avenue closed, leaving 2,100 people jobless. More than a year later, many former employees are finding difficulty in stocking their refrigerators and cabinets with food. For help, some turned to the United Auto Workers, a labor union representing the closed Chrysler facility.

According to UAW financial secretary Alena Bandy, the union established a food bank in the '80s, formed primarily with funding and food from Chrysler employees. Now, the bulk of the contributors, who are no longer employed, still drive to the food bank on Old Baltimore Pike, but instead of dropping off extra groceries and pantry items, they are picking up food to put on their own kitchen tables.

"It's really sad," Bandy said in December. "You just would not believe the need of food in this area now."

The food bank operates one day a week. Volunteers have been packaging and preparing food for an expected 65 to 75 people a week, the average turnout rate in recent weeks. By the end of December, more than 100 families showed up at the food bank, and in desperate need. In recent weeks, the food bank served 125 people in a time span of three hours.

"Since the closing of the plant we went from 15 people in a given day to over 100 families," Bandy said. "All our funds were generated from the work force, so now that the work force is gone, we are sustaining on our own with whatever we had in our account."

Volunteers at the food bank, overwhelmed with people and underwhelmed with food, contacted Delaware Social Services after the high turnout rate.

"We were really alarmed," Bandy said of the largest crowd the food bank had ever seen. "We contacted Social Services to see if these people are eligible for food stamps."

A Demand for Food Stamps

Food stamp usage is at an all-time high nationwide, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times, feeding one in eight Americans and one in four children.

In 239 cities throughout the United States, including the Bronx and Philadelphia, a quarter of the population now receives food stamps. Additionally, 6 million Americans reported that food stamps were their sole source of income, according to the Times' analysis.

The stigma against food stamps may have faded in this new era of hunger, with 36 million Americans now swiping the plastic card to pay for groceries as of November 2009.   

Bandy said after the UAW saw its largest turnouts, she and coworkers are planning to assist those who come to the food bank in finding out if they can receive food stamps. 

"We're going to set up a community fair, and get people to go right in and see if they're eligible for food stamps."

A community fair is scheduled for Feb. 18 from 11 to 7 p.m. at the Union Hall.

The UAW purchases all of its food from the Food Bank of Delaware, which supplies food for more than 90,000 Delawareans each year.

The food bank's Web site states most people seeking food from the food bank are hard-working families forced to choose between food and everyday necessities. The study found that 71 percent of clients were non-Hispanic black and 21 percent were non-Hispanic white.