Working poor

Editor's note: This is the second of three Sunday articles on the unemployed and working poor in Kings County.

During his heyday, Ray Joe raked in plenty of money as a forklift operator. For years, Joe, 55, of Hanford, dedicated his life at Contadina to put food on the table and have a roof over his head. Today, without a job, he's homeless, dressed in shirts and pants smeared with black oil and dirt. His face is forested with a stubble of white-and-black beard, and valleys of wrinkles are imbedded in his skin. At night, he sleeps on cold concrete without a pillow, usually at local parks. Life has been that way for four years.

Joe, a schizophrenic, relies on pills to calm down the ocean of voices that rattle his ears. At night, he wakes up every two hours, bombarded by thoughts that other people will steal from him and hurt him. He sometimes starves for a couple days, facing the gnaw of a growling stomach.

Two charities in Hanford, the Salvation Army and the Episcopal Church, are life saviors for Joe and dozens of other low-income and homeless people, providing them with ready-to-eat breakfasts and lunches to fill their empty bellies and shrink the drain on their pinched-up wallets. The charities provide a safety net that secures them not only with hot food throughout much of the week but also tight-knit friendships that they otherwise wouldn't make.

"If these charities didn't serve breakfast and lunch, I couldn't make it," said Joe, after wolfing down six hot pancakes at the Salvation Army. "I'd be hungry all day, and lots of people would be suicidal."

Indeed, for those interviewed for this story, many say that they'd starve if the Salvation Army and the Episcopal Church didn't serve hot meals. Some are without food stamps and earnings whatsoever, squeezed outside the workforce by layoffs or by their own crippling disabilities. Others, eking a living on poverty-level incomes, rely on the charities for breakfast and lunch to save them money that would otherwise drain their skinny wallets. In most cases, the savings help keep their air conditioner blasting amid the summer heat, their children's bellies full and their cars' engines humming. All say they befriend people facing financial hardship, not shunned as they are by a society that adores the rich, famous and powerful.

For many, dining at the Salvation Army and Episcopal Church soup kitchen have become a daily ritual, complete with waiting in line for a heaping plate of hot food, served with American delicacies like apple pie, chicken noodle soup and hot dogs. They dine inside on tables with friends like themselves -- those facing poverty.

Experts say soup kitchens provide a lifesaving safety net for those who can't put food on the table.

"Having access to hot food at soup kitchens is important for those who can't afford food," said Robin Maria DeLugan, an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Merced and an expert on quality-of-life issues in the Central Valley. "That's one way to address food insecurity."

Central Valley stands out from the rest of the nation because the farm-rich region falls short on key indicators of well-being like median income, education level, graduation rates and those medically insured. Parts of the Central Valley, including Kings County, have been dubbed the "Appalachia of the West" with its sky-high poverty rates, low-education level and, in some cases, lifestyles bordering on the Third World. As a result, local charities like the Episcopal Church have stepped up to the plate to serve as an even more important safety net to those who fall through the cracks than nonprofit organizations in richer parts of the nation.

"I've been amazed with the energy that community-based organizations in the Valley have shown in working together to address complex issues like food insecurity," DeLugan said.

Indeed, several nonprofit organizations in Hanford routinely provide free noncooked foods, including St. Vincent's DePaul, Community Action and the Kings Pantry in Hanford. But only the Salvation Army and the Episcopal Church dish out hot meals, crucial for the homeless who don't have kitchens and utensils to pop open and boil a can of soup. The Salvation Army serves breakfast Monday through Friday, and the church provides lunch Monday through Saturday.

"If it wasn't for the soup kitchen, lots of people would starve over time or steal food," said Deidre Smith, 30, a volunteer at the Episcopal Church.

Often the disabled rely on the Salvation Army and the Episcopal Church the most because they barely have enough money to provide themselves shelter. Their disability insurance just isn't enough money to provide a sustainable lifestyle, even with MediCal. According to those interviewed, all get below $890 a month in disability insurance, just enough for a typical one-bedroom apartment in Hanford along with utilities. But that leaves little for food. As a result, the church's soup kitchen and the Salvation Army help to stave off their hunger.

Christina Garcia, 28, of Hanford, is one of the disabled regulars at the church's soup kitchen.

"If it wasn't for this place, I'd be hungry," said Garcia, who sleeps in a garage at night and roams around Hanford's Civic Park by day.

She suffers from a crippling version of schizophrenia and depression, as well as borderline mental retardation. She reads at the level of a fifth-grader, resulting in her spelling and reading only the most basic materials. She's been rushed in and out of mental hospitals throughout her adulthood, ravaged by demons in her mind.

Life has been rough for Garcia, who gets $772 a month in disability insurance. When she was little, her mom whipped a belt every day across Garcia's face. Garcia was left with purple bruises and red lashes imbedded on her face. And her mom once nearly stabbed her with a knife.

"I hate her," Garcia said. "I wished she died. She ruined my life. She caused me to have scars in my heart."

To ease her depression and pain, Garcia sometimes would slash her wrists, leaving blood to drip all over. She even almost shot herself with a gun.

"I hate my life," Garcia said.

Nurses once pinned her down on a bed, pulling her flailing arms away after she tried to slash her wrists. She doesn't take medications to fight the demons prowling her mind. Instead, she drinks alcohol to soothe her symptoms.

As a child, she grew up with an imaginary friend -- a frog -- whom she would tell every pain she'd suffer. He'd offer a safe place for her to vent her feelings.

"Instead of cutting myself up, I'd talk to him," she said.

Now when she begs strangers for help, they turn their backs away.

"They look at me as if I have some kind of disease and as if I'm crazy," she said.

But at the soup kitchen, she says guests are lovable and warm, willing to view her heart, not her symptoms and impoverished lifestyle. She's able to make friends, with whom she spends time under the sun and on the grass at Hanford's Civic Park during the day. At the soup kitchen, her disease and her disabilities melt away. For a brief moment, she's been accepted.

Outside of the soup kitchen, though, life is cold.

"When I'm like this, I don't understand why people are so mean," she said.

Not all visitors to the soup kitchen are disabled.

Ralph Contreras, 39, is a perfectly healthy visitor, who lives with his girlfriend and four children, crammed in a one-bedroom apartment in Hanford. Curtains partition the living room, helping them to sleep at night. And when the weather sizzles outside, their swamp cooler reduces the temperature inside.

At his last job, Contreras, who only graduated from middle school, worked maintenance at a local theater, making minimum wage without benefits.

Ever since he was laid off five years ago, he's applied to work at scores of retailers and markets in Hanford, from Wal-Mart to Target and from Dollar Tree to Food Co.

"Nobody wants to hire me," he said. "I've put numerous applications in."

Eating out means splurging on dollar-meal deals at fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King only once in a while. They never leave Kings County -- not even to visit Fresno -- in order to save gas.

"What do we do there?" asked Contreras. "We're broke."

Contreras drives a 1995 Ford Taurus, with 140,000 miles on it. A foot-long dent on the right side of the car gleams with silver.

"I have no money to fix it," he said.

The Contreras household communicates with the outside world only by face-to-face contact. They neither have phones nor Internet.

Contreras and his girlfriend, Rene Rodriguez, 35, a baby-sitter, dine at the church's soup kitchen in order to save money for feeding their children.

Before discovering the soup kitchen, Contreras and Rodriguez, who both have nothing in the bank, would sometimes starve for a few days, all in an effort to save money. The couple would drink water to stave off their stomachs' growls.

Rodriguez, who only finished high school, pulls in at most $400 a month and gets by with food stamps, most of which is used to buy food for her children.

For Contreras and his family, stepping into the Hanford Mall is forbidden. Instead, they buy clothes at the flea market. Even shopping at Super Wal-Mart, renowned for its deals, is a luxury.

There are people worse off than the Contreras household. Contreras says he befriends people at the soup kitchen who have sunk deeper into poverty than him. Contreras sometimes opens his doors to these friends, allowing them to shower and spend a couple nights at his apartment.

"My life is rich," Contreras said. "I consider myself blessed."

The reporter can be reached at 583-2423.