Hitting home

In past years partisans have often hyped the numbers, but with joblessness and foreclosures up, "we would be naïve to believe that we won't see more homeless" | Alisa Harris

Associated Press/Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez

Mary, 58, peered at the glass of antifreeze sitting next to her bed and tried to scold herself into drinking it. The former graphic designer had lost her job a year earlier, run through her savings and 401(k), and fallen three months behind on her rent. Recently, she had researched suicide methods at the library: "I just wanted it to be over. I saw no hope. It was absolute rock bottom."

In November 2006, a newly unemployed Mary had begun looking hard for work, but "graphic arts is a job for a 25-year-old person who doesn't live in mid-Michigan where the economy is depressed. . . . There are no jobs here, plain and simple." She had alienated family and friends, and after a year faced growing desperation: "Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I was going to be in a position where I was going to be unemployed, or poverty-stricken, or homeless. I'm at the stage in life where I should be in my golden years and it was like all of a sudden the bottom fell out."