When Holiday Lights Flicker

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Kyle Burson has difficulty walking, but he doesn’t let that stop him from trudging between his East Jackson apartment and the nearest bus stop. Burson, 49, has a bad knee that causes him to walk with a slight limp. He also suffers from cerebral palsy, a condition that has diminished his motor skills.

But apart from the physical limitations, Burson has a sharp mind. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting. He’s even run for Town Council more than once, although as a dark horse candidate, he’s never received much more than a sliver of the total votes.

His skill with numbers has landed him jobs in the cash cages of some local businesses. He has also worked as a hotel front desk clerk, which is the kind of job that suits him, he said.

But Burson has not had steady work since he was laid off from a job at K-Mart more than a year ago. Everyday he walks to the bus stop and takes a town shuttle to the library, where he checks email and searches the want ads. Occasionally he drops by the local workforce services office. Although Burson is employable, he can’t work just any job, and that makes the search even harder than it already is. And some jobs that might otherwise be right for him are located too far from a bus stop.

“The last time I worked was October 1st,” Burson said, referring to a temp position at a motel. “But that job ended because it was seasonal.”

Over the years, Burson has occasionally turned to the Community Resource Center for various kinds of assistance. But recently the nonprofit has had to step in more often to help him with money to pay bills and provide him with clothing. Despite his condition, he has chosen not to file for disability, and the unemployment checks have run out, leaving him with very little.

Burson is among a growing population of unemployed or underemployed people in Jackson Hole who now depend on help from various nonprofit social aid groups, including the Community Resource Center.

Teton County’s unemployment rate peaked as high as 8.1 percent in October, according to the most recent data available from the state’s Department of Employment.

Resource Center director Smokey Rhea said rising unemployment is chipping away at the home lives of many, and her organization is seeing an unprecedented number of clients struggling to make ends meet.

“I think people would be stunned if they knew the extent of how bad things are in this community right now,” Rhea said. “It’s so much worse than most people know.”
The upcoming holiday season has helped underscore difficult situations many now face. And at the same time a growing number of people are seeking aid from the valley’s social service, there are signs that fewer people may be giving to holiday season charities.

Christine Lasher, a Bank of Jackson Hole employee, oversees the Angel Tree program that the bank began organizing this time last year. The program compiles a list of needy young people who are individually represented by paper ornaments hanging on a wish tree in the bank’s West Broadway branch.

Each ornament displays a first name, age, and a few items the young person wishes for. It’s not all pleas for fancy presents like snowboards and remote-controlled cars – in fact, many of the requests are for necessities like wool socks and warm clothing. But by the end of last week, only about half of the 65 young people on this year’s Angel Tree had been adopted, leaving Lasher concerned.
“Last year, the names went very quickly,” she said. “But so far this year it’s been pretty slow.”
Lasher said she and other bank employees have attributed the slow rate of needy child adoption to the same economic struggles being worn on the faces of a growing number of bank customers.

“Some of these kids aren’t getting anything for Christmas,” she said, adding that the bank would step in to adopt the children whose ornaments still hang on the tree when the program concludes at the end of this week.

The group hit hardest by rising unemployment is the Latino community, according to social workers. Many Hispanic workers have had their hours rolled back by the construction and lodging industries. Others were simply not hired back after the usual lulls of the off-season.

“It’s dramatically different,” said Gaby Haro, a case manager for the Latino Resource Center, which provides referrals to members of the Hispanic community.
Haro has observed a dramatic uptick in the number of clients she sees, many of whom in the last year have lost all or part of their incomes.
“There are quite a number of struggling Latinos,” she said.

Rhea, of the Community Resource Center, said there is a growing demand for necessities not covered by food stamps – household items like soap, toilet paper, toothpaste and feminine hygiene products.
“We used to see requests for the warm fuzzies” – or nonessential items – “now, it’s about meeting people’s basic needs,” Rhea said.
There may be an underestimation of the number of financially struggling people here because of a close-knit community, and people may be reluctant to share with friends and neighbors that they have fallen on hard times, observed Rhea. While only a very few actually sleep on the streets, an untold number of homeless move from couch to couch. Some have moved in with relatives, often leading to more stress in households that already feel burdened.

“We’ve seen a lot of elderly people whose kids have moved back in,” Rhea said. “Now you have the kids and the grandkids all living under one roof.”

While a number of gift giving programs target children during the holidays, more could be done for other groups, Rhea said, particularly the elderly, and also adults with mental health issues.

The organizations that target those groups, including the Senior Center and Community Entry Services, are feeling the painful cuts of state funding, while other help aid providers are simply stretched thin from the sharp increase in needy people. The strain is often felt by the Community Resource Center, which this year received a series of emergency grants from the Community Foundation totaling about $30,000.

A few weeks ago, people seeking assistance from the Resource Center filled two separate waiting areas, and a line of people snaked out the door. The desire to protect client confidentiality means the organization will transition after the New Year –for the first time ever– into a by-appointment-only facility.

“We used to be able to help everyone and develop a plan for everyone who came in here,” Rhea said. “Now we feel more like a triage trying to do the best we can. It’s exhausting.”

But even as many are struggling to make ends meet, few have the physical impairments Kyle Burson faces everyday. Despite the limitations, which make finding a job exceedingly difficult in all but the best economy, Burson has been called a model social services client, someone who makes every effort to find ways to help himself.

“You hear all the time that someone could find a job if they really wanted to,” Rhea said. “Well, that’s not true, and Kyle’s proof.”

Burson, meanwhile, has already planned a special holiday meal of baked ham, “whiskey sweet potatoes,” and stuffing with oysters and Andouille sausage – the latter two from recipes by celebrity chefs. The two younger roommates who share his apartment and help make rent manageable will likely be around for Christmas dinner, he said.

Burson said others often misinterpret his slow speech and movements – symptoms of the cerebral palsy – as a sign of a developmentally stunted mind.
“I think the handicap does make it hard [to find a job],” he said. “But I think people think ‘physical’ means ‘mental,’ and you know what, it doesn’t. It just means I can’t do some things physically. My mind is way sharp.” JHW

Kyle Burson by Derek Diluzio

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