An article in Sunday's edition of The Sun incorrectly stated the number of jobs lost in Maryland during the recent recession. The correct number is 80,000 jobs lost.
The Sun regrets the error.
Poverty in Maryland is moving to the suburbs.
Until 1993, the typical poor person lived in Baltimore.
But last year, for the first time, the majority of the state's poor lived outside Charm City.
"Poverty is not just a black, urban problem," said Linda Eisenberg, executive director of the Maryland Food Committee.
"We've known for a long time that this isn't so, but now it's becoming more visible. The numbers are greater," she said.
Last year, nearly 53 percent of the 347,669 Marylanders who received public assistance lived in the counties, compared with 43 percent of 258,347 recipients six years ago, according to the state Department of Human Resources.
The suburban poor include Meredith Wulff, a Howard County woman who lost her job because of an injury; Margie Anderson, a 22-year-old unwed mother of three whose family crisis started 12 years ago when her father left home; Wesley Padgett, a working father caring for three children; and Rita Burris, a mother who fled the city's housing projects to find a better life for her family in Baltimore County.
The recession and cuts in the defense industry are cited as the main reasons for the increase of poverty in the counties. The Maryland Food Committee estimates that the state lost 800,000 jobs during the recession -- most of them at companies in the suburbs.
Bob Gaidyz, director of the Baltimore County Community Assistance Network, estimated that 30 percent of the people his agency helps are "new poor" -- people who never sought help before.
But some problems will not diminish even as the economy improves. Housing costs are increasing, especially in formerly rural counties such as Harford and Carroll. Poor people are moving away from Baltimore to find a better life. The number of single-parent families is increasing in the suburbs,from 57,000 in 1980 to more than 78,000 in 1990, according to the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.
"No one has much of a personal safety net," Ms. Eisenberg said. "People are seeing friends and family go into the skids awfully fast."
Jobs never lasted
Margie Anderson was only 10 when her father left home, taking with him the middle-class life she had known. Although her mother returned to work, the bills climbed. Ms. Anderson left parochial school to attend a public school. Her older sister left home for good.
Ms. Anderson recalls feeling alone and confused.
At 13, she had her first baby and dropped out of school. A year later, pregnant with her second child, she turned to the state for aid. At 18, she moved out of her mother's home to live with a boyfriend.
Today, Ms. Anderson lives in a three-room house in Essex with her third child, a blond 2-year-old. Ms. Anderson's mother cares for the two older children.
Ms. Anderson has held a number of jobs at fast-food restaurants and gas stations, but they never lasted. She still is among nearly 29,000 Baltimore County residents receiving assistance -- for her, $290 a month, plus food stamps. But after she pays $200 in rent, she has $90 left to buy clothing, toiletries, medicine and gasoline. She needs dental care, but cannot afford it.
In the past few months, she has found a food pantry at a nearby church that she visits twice a month. Ms. Anderson tries to repay the church by helping stock shelves or picking up donations.
Like other suburban poor, her poverty is not obvious. The house she rents from her boyfriend's family is modest, but much about the household is middle class. Friends have given her a microwave. She has a washer and dryer. She drives a 1984 Thunderbird.
Ms. Anderson is working to change her life. She has received her general equivalency diploma, is studying criminal justice at Essex Community College and would like to be a police officer.
L "I don't just sit and boo-hoo about my situation," she said.
Number of programs
The state offers a number of public assistance programs, but the largest in terms of people helped and dollars spent are the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and the food stamp program.
Maryland distributed more than $313 million -- a combination of state and federal money -- in AFDC benefits last year to needy children and the relatives who care for them.
The state's food stamp program, which provides benefits for the working poor as well as those receiving AFDC and other welfare payments, cost even more -- $336.5 million. Rita Burris has no regrets aboutmoving to Essex.
She was a high school dropout living in Baltimore's housing projects until 1989, when threats from drug addicts and the desire to give her children a good education prompted her to move to Baltimore County.
"I felt like I'd been at the bottom. I didn't want to stay there anymore," she said.
She scraped together what money she had and rented a one-bedroom apartment for $320. Social services workers donated beds and food.
She enrolled in the state's Project Independence, a program designed to help welfare recipients learn skills and get jobs. She learned such basic skills as balancing a checkbook and earned a high school equivalency diploma. She enrolled in the Career Development Center on Eastern Avenue to learn bookkeeping.
Although still on welfare and struggling to keep up with her studies, her life is beginning to turn around. The family has moved into subsidized housing. Her daughter is enrolled in the ++ gifted and talented program at Deep Creek Middle School. And county school officials have discovered that her son, whom city school officials believed was autistic, has only a speech impediment.
"Living in the county makes you feel different," she said. "They make you feel like you are somebody."
She plans to graduate from the Career Development Center this spring and insists she will get a job.
"I'm going to close my case on public assistance," she said.
Counties lack resources
In some ways, the life of a poor person is harder outside Baltimore because the counties often lack resources poor people need.
Public transportation is deficient or absent. The bus to Columbia Mall, for instance, stops running at 7 p.m. One woman living at a shelter in Catonsville found work in Randallstown, but the bus ride to her job took 2 1/2 hours.
Housing costs also are higher. A 1991 survey by Baltimore's housing agency showed rents for a two-bedroom apartment averaged $599 in the suburbs, compared with $441 in the city.
Many of today's poor have been stretching their incomes to make mortgage and car payments for a long time. When a crisis arises, the spiral into poverty begins.
The number of working people seeking assistance is on the rise. One Anne Arundel food pantry estimated that 40 percent of the people it helps are working.
"We've had a tremendous increase in the number of people coming to us who are working," said Lynda Paxton of Southwest Emergency Services in Baltimore County.
Ms. Eisenberg says part of the problem is that salaries have failed to keep pace with the cost of living. "It's an insanity that people who work in this country still have to rely on charity for food," she said.
'It's got to get easier'
Wesley Padgett, 32, works for a medical supply company, but sporadic layoffs since Christmas have made it difficult to pay the bills and support the three children in his care.
Mr. Padgett was facing eviction from his two-bedroom apartment in Dundalk when the Community Assistance Network and Baltimore County's Department of Social Services gave him money to pay February's rent.
Life has never been easy for Mr. Padgett. When he was 8, his mother became ill. He and his five brothers and sisters were placed in a children's home.
He graduated from Catonsville High School, moved to Florida and married. But a few years ago, the marriage ended and he was awarded custody of his son and daughter.
He moved back to Baltimore and found a job. Six months ago, he became the guardian of his 14-year-old nephew. Until December, Mr. Padgett's $7-an-hour job was enough to support the family. But then the rotating layoffs began.
Mr. Padgett receives $170 a month in AFDC benefits and the family receives $120 a month in food stamps, but it's not enough, he said.
The phone was disconnected when he couldn't pay a $180 bill. He owes $40 to a doctor. The rent costs $510 a month. His 1982 Ford Escort needs repairs.
"I'm juggling," he said.
Mr. Padgett has learned to economize, buying groceries at box-your-own stores, clipping coupons and stretching spaghetti dinners for three days.
The family has given up occasional nights out bowling or at the movies. Also gone is the tradition of dining out on Mr. Padgett's payday.
"The kids say they understand, but you can see the hurt in their eyes," he said.
Mr. Padgett dreams of a day when he can return to college and study to be a draftsman. But for now, he takes life one day at a time.
"This year was the hardest," he said. "But it's got to get easier."
Straining agencies
The rise of suburban poverty is straining state and private agencies that try to help. The Department of Human Resources, which administers food stamp and AFDC programs, was not spared state budget cuts a few years ago. Despite increasing numbers of cases, the number of caseworkers declined from 7,800 in 1989 to 6,800 today.
In Baltimore County, the Department of Social Services has had to spend so much time processing new applications for assistance that it has been unable to monitor existing cases, said Camille Wheeler, department director.
Private agencies also are strained. St. Peter's Lutheran Church Food Distribution Center on Belair Road has had to discontinue its fuel and rent assistance program to continue to keep its food pantry stocked. Even then, it has had to limit families to visits every other week.
Federal funding of local Community Action Agencies also has not kept pace with the rise of suburban poverty. The $5 million the state receives in federal money is distributed to the localities based on a formula devised in 1981, when the city had the bulk of the state's poor.
'Trying to find a job'
Meredith Wulff, a 34-year-old single mother of two, never expected to be poor. She had worked at Giant Food for 16 years, earning $600 a week.
But two years ago, she had back surgery and could not return to her job as a department manager.
She is awaiting a workers' compensation hearing. Her savings ++ have evaporated, her rent is overdue and she has lost her medical insurance. Family members have helped, but cannot continue to give. Recently, she asked the Howard County Department of Human Resources to help.
Like most newcomers to the welfare system, she is amazed at the paperwork and frustrated at the delays. "I've worked my whole life, and now it's taking so long to get on the system," she said.
She has looked for other jobs, but has been unable to find anything that will pay more than $7 an hour -- not enough, she said, to pay for child care and other expenses.
"I'm trying to keep positive. Trying to find a job," she said.
Not too late
Although the state's economy is beginning to recover from the recession, social service departments and charities have seen little evidence that the poverty in the suburbs is declining.
Michael Conte, director of the Regional Economic Studies Program at the University of Baltimore, predicts that the number of welfare and food stamp recipients will decline.
But he said that the majority of the poor will continue to live in the counties, partly because the city is losing population and partly because the counties are becoming increasingly urbanized.
But, it's still not too late, Ms. Wheeler said. "We have a real opportunity to do something about it before it becomes an epidemic."
1993 Aid to Baltimore Metropolitan Area Counties
Anne Arundel
AFDC Paid Recipients: 4,442
Food Stamps Recipients: 16,279
Baltimore County
AFDC Paid Recipients: 19,045
Food Stamp Recipients: 28,863
Carroll County
AFDC Paid Recipients: 1,683
Food Stamp Recipients: 3,098
Harford County
AFDC Paid Recipients: 3,960
Food Stamp Recipients: 7,594
Howard County
AFDC Paid Recipients: 2,238
Food Stamp Recipients: 3,729