The Recession: Will It Recede?

Her face is aged with despair. Her eyes embody the image of pure sadness. “Jean” is one of the many displaced by the recession, a problem that is spreading nationally, it is the new epidemic of our time. Jean is sitting, speaking of her troubles, a middle aged women, her hair is unwashed and tasseled with dust and her spirit filled with grief. Jean and her husband until recently lived a very comfortable life in sunny Sacramento, California, one of the cities hurt most by the recession. Middle and working class families like Jean’s are now facing the reality of the saying “only one paycheck away from homeless”. Like many others, she does not alarm her children with her situation, she does not want to “burden” them. And so she makes weekly calls to them from a pay phone to assure them that her and her husband are good. She dwells with many  others in a tent city-an establishment of tents that can closely resemble the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. A house full of items and memories eliminated to the bare necessities a tent is capable of holding. Have we gone backwards? Are we returning to those days we thought we overcame only seven decades ago? We are used to the image of panhandlers with cardboard signs on street corners when we think of homeless people-not our neighbors and coworkers. This is a problem that very literally hits close to home. Businesses are failing, homes are foreclosing, and people are left without options. CEO’s, managers, and employees are all being left in the cold and all to compete for what few jobs are left if any. Graduates fresh off the colliegiate line are left without prospects. With our country in debt, a New Deal like the one enforced by Roosevelt all those years ago seems unlikely.  Many savor hope with the newly elected Obama and his promise for change but many feel hopeless. This situation seems as if it will get worse before it gets better.