Toleration Point Zero

Snapshots of struggle: Everyday people try to survive in a sputtering economy




John Kuntz/The Plain DealerIndependent truck Jack Holman would get out of the business if he could. He spent more than $1,000 this week for fuel. Saving money is difficult.
It's the dramatic stuff that makes headlines.

Banks failing. Financial bulwarks crumbling. The housing market tumbling.

But when the economy hits the rocks, it doesn't take long for the waves on Wall Street to roll to Main Street.

As economists, bankers and brokers bat around solutions, people across Northeast Ohio struggle to pay their bills and balance their budgets.

The distress echoes in largely unseen places - in the real estate offices where phones rarely ring; in the procession of new faces to pawn shops; at the pizza joint where a pie costs 15 percent more than it used to.

Here are some of those stories.

The trucker



By Friday morning, Jack Holman's weekly fuel bill topped $1,000.

Rising diesel prices have left Holman doubting a career he once loved.

"If there was something different for me tomorrow, I'd be gone," said the independent truck driver from North Ridgeville.

Unlike a company driver, Holman bears his own fuel costs. He owes roughly $37,000 on his truck and trailer. And the young Cleveland native has a wife and two young kids.

Now he shells out at least $600 more a month for fuel compared with this time last year. He and his wife can pay the bills, but they don't put much in the bank.

Nationwide, about 9 percent of truck drivers are independent. With diesel going for $4 or more a gallon, many who can afford a career change are eyeing the exit ramp.

Holman doesn't have that option. He still has three years of payments left on his rig. At 26, he doesn't see a way out.

"You just cut other places," he said, leaning against his truck in a Brooklyn parking lot. "Cut out your fun stuff, eating out, taking the kids places.

"You feel guilty buying a cup of coffee when you fill up in the morning."



The real estate agent



The quiet grates on her.

"I don't know how to put this into words," said Wilma Kwiecien, who has sold homes for 17 years.

In the past two years, Northeast Ohio has seen sales of single-family homes fall nearly 7 percent - and prices plunge more than 17 percent. As the housing market crumbled, a third of Kwiecien's paycheck ended up in the rubble.

Some Realtors in her place have given up. The Ohio Association of Realtors expects a 7 percent drop in membership this year.

Instead of walking away, Kwiecien has taken on a part-time job. She cleans homes, offices and industrial buildings 20 hours each week for a family member's business. At her day job, at a Parma Heights Re/Max office, she hopes for a sale commission - and struggles with the cost of advertising homes that sit on the market for months.

Kwiecien believes the market is due for a rebound. But when you've gone from selling homes to scrubbing them, it's not easy to stay upbeat.

"I can't explain this to you," she said. "When you're used to the phone ringing, the phone ringing, and then there's dead silence . . .

"It's hard to cope with that."

The pawn shop owner



Chris Stephens/The Plain DealerLou Tansky, owner of Uncle Ben's Pawn Shop, has never seen more customers. Many are pawning possessions to make mortgages or car payments.

Here's a portrait of tough times: People trying to pawn fur coats when there's still snow on the ground.

That's one of the tough-luck stories Lou Tansky tells. The pawn shop owner - who, for the record, doesn't accept pawned pelts - has never seen more new customers. Or so many sleek, suburban cars in his parking lot off St. Clair Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

"It's not our business to ask people why they need the money," said Tansky, owner of Uncle Ben's Pawn Shop and president of the Ohio Pawnbrokers Association.

"We don't go into their personal lives," he said, "but many people volunteer that it's their need to make their house payment, their car payment."

Rising costs for gas, utilities, food and other staples leave lower- and middle-class consumers feeling crunched. Some borrow against family heirlooms to fill their gas tanks. Others take advantage of high - but wildly fluctuating - gold prices by trading chains and other trinkets for cash.

It's a simple fact, however unpleasant, that one man's misery can be a pawn shop's payoff.

"We are a bank for people who have no other recourse," Tansky said. "It is good for business, but certainly we don't want to ever see the economy in bad shape."

The fast-food supervisor



Thomas Ondrey/The Plain DealerJayson Rogers' family owns four McDonald's restaurants in Cleveland. Costs are up, and business is down 10 percent at the one on Euclid Avenue.
Even the Dollar Menu might be too steep in some cases.

Jayson Rogers' family owns four McDonald's restaurants in Cleveland. Hardest hit is the one on Euclid Avenue near East 83rd Street. Business is down 10 percent this year. Increasing costs of meat and cooking oil have translated into higher food prices, which keep away many would-be customers already struggling to pay the mortgage and utility bills.

"Everything's getting more expensive," Rogers said, adding that "the perception right now is that people have to budget better."

But the economic downtown isn't the only issue Rogers faces. The store also suffers because of road construction on Euclid.

Rogers said he suspects the difficulty of reaching the restaurant may discourage even regular McDonald's customers with discretionary money to spend.

Business at the family's newly renovated McDonald's on Carnegie Avenue, near East 30th Street, has picked up enough to cover the losses on Euclid.

"This store never feels busy," said Rogers, a vice president in his family's corporation. "We're not generating what we need here just to keep the building up."

The couple



Chuck Crow/The Plain DealerAmber Theodore and her husband, Paul, have cut expenses to get by on $19,000 a year in take-home pay. Their YMCA helped by subsidizing their monthly payment.
New clothes. Dinners out. A NetFlix movie subscription.

Preschool teacher Amber Theodore is a pro at slashing the household budget. That's a necessary skill in a two-person household where the yearly take-home pay hits just $19,000.

But Theodore and her husband, Paul, a full-time student, refused to part with their gym memberships. Instead, they asked for help from their YMCA in Westlake, which dropped the couple's monthly payment from $60 to $23.

Rick Haase can't put a number on how many members of the Greater Cleveland YMCA are struggling. But Haase, the YMCA's marketing manager, has noticed "a marked increase" in requests for scholarships and financial support, particularly at the system's downtown Cleveland branch.

The YMCA, which won't turn anyone away based on money, often sees early signs of people's financial pain.

"Probably in the last six months or so, it's become more prevalent," Haase said. "I do think that's a direct reflection of the economy."

Theodore, who is 23 and starts graduate school this fall, is worried. Her 25-year-old husband is finishing his master's degree in social work administration and makes some money through an internship. The Olmsted Falls couple has $70,000 to $80,000 in student loans. A car payment. Some credit card debt.

"I'm just, I'm really afraid that it's going downhill from here," Theodore said.

The pizza king


Joshua Gunter/The Plain DealerNick Makris is working longer hours at his Pizza King restaurant, a 50-year-old business in Berea. He has never laid off employees, but he has to consider it now.
In the 29 years Nick Makris has owned Pizza King in Berea, he has never had to cut staff to boost his bottom line. But today, he's thinking pink slips, possibly for six of his 12 employees.

And he might cut back business hours at the 24-hour restaurant.

In the past 90 days, he said, wholesale prices of eggs, dough and cheese have doubled. "I had to raise my prices 15 percent," he said. "Customers complain, but I have no choice."

Makris said he has seen fewer customers the past few years as people opt to save money by eating at home. Slowdowns and layoffs at the Ford Motor Co. plant in nearby Brook Park also have hurt his business.

Pizza King in Berea has been in business for a half century. Makris, 55, of Strongsville, bought it in 1979. He and his wife have raised three kids on the business.

Until now, Makris put in about eight hours a day at the job. Today, he works 12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. He could close the shop. But for Makris, an immigrant from Greece, giving up would be an affront to his work ethic.

"If things continue the way they are, I'm going to have to make some moves," he said. "I'm going to try my best. This is still the greatest country in the world."

The moving agent



For a decade, Chuck Haliburton made as much as $75,000 annually.

Now he makes far less money than he did three years ago. As a moving-company agent, the father of two young children is about to start working solely on commission.

"With the economy the way it is, it's not a good time to do that," he said. "The residential market is terrible right now. No one's moving. Houses aren't selling. It's scary."

Haliburton, 30, worked for a United Van Lines agent until a year ago. Now he works for another company that offered him $60,000 for one year, then strictly commission. His year is up soon.

"When the economy is good you have people selling homes, moving around," he said. "And if you're motivated, the world is yours. But today there's a great feeling of uncertainty."

Haliburton lives in Lorain with his fianc e and their two children. They do not plan a vacation this year, and his fianc e, who works part-time for a magazine publisher, is looking to go full time or find a second job.

The pair is putting off their wedding to save money and is considering taking their daughter out of private school because they can't afford the tuition.

"We're definitely scaling back," he said. "We want to keep a safety net, but it's hard to put money away. We're shopping a little smarter. We're even clipping coupons now."

The bankruptcy lawyer



Personal bankruptcies in Northeast Ohio are rising as people from a wide range of incomes sink in red ink.

"I hate to paint a doom-and-gloom picture, but it's a very difficult time," said bankruptcy lawyer Keith Borders. "And I think we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg."

Rauser & Associates, where Borders works, is one of the largest bankruptcy operations in the state. The company has been filing 250 to 300 personal bankruptcies a month - one of the highest caseloads Borders has seen in his eight years there.

In January, the bankruptcy division of U.S. District Court in Cleveland received 1,948 personal bankruptcy filings. Filings jumped to 2,182 last month.

"This is not about people being irresponsible with credit," Borders said. "It's about trying to live and covering their monthly expenses."

Mickey Rabin, a bankruptcy lawyer in a small firm, Rabin & Rabin, said she has never seen so many hard-time cases in her 30 years of practicing law. Many involve people with six-figure incomes.

One client, a self-employed financial consultant in his mid-50s, pays $950 a month for health insurance. "How can he afford that?" she asked. "Nobody can.

"I'm telling you, it's really bad. It's affecting every class of income, and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better."