ALEXANDRIA — Though Doug, an Alexandria resident, can’t work because of a disability, he doesn’t spend his days idle.

The 56-year-old often can be found at local businesses, doing the only thing he can to survive before his disability and Social Security benefits are approved: asking for help.

Doug, who asked The Herald Bulletin not to use his last name, spends his days sitting on the trunk of his old, red Chevrolet Spectrum with a cardboard sign: “Poor health. Can’t work. Please help. God bless.”

“I’m trying to get by like everybody else,” he said. “That’s the only reason I sit here and panhandle. I don’t really want to.”

Doug has been denied disability benefits twice and hopes his third application will go through. In the meantime, he waits, like an increasing number of Madison County residents who have lost their jobs and livelihoods, a result of either the strained economy or the ripple effects from the General Motors exodus from the county.

Nancy Vaughan, president of the United Way of Madison County, said that agency recently decided to shift its focus more toward fulfilling the basic needs of the community as more people fall into poverty. The organization will increase funding to that portion of its outreach.

“What agencies are telling me is that they are seeing a lot of people who are first-timers,” Vaughan said. “This is the first time they have sought help from a nonprofit. That’s been a trend for the past year.”

Doug wishes he didn’t have to seek others’ help. But he knew he had to do something to bring in income, as he grew tired of allowing family members to help him buy medication and gas for his car and keep up his little camp trailer residence.

“It’s a humbling experience, I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s just I got to do something. I couldn’t depend on my relatives to take care of me. None of them’s got any money to speak of.”

Numbers show a growing problem

Although the last national poverty statistics released were from 2007, agencies around Madison County have been seeing an increase more recently.

“We have increased need and decreased funding,” Vaughan said. “We’d like to have more money to give them, but the reality is it’s not there. We know the demand is up so much.”

Since 2002, the United Way’s annual campaign contributions have fallen from $2.4 million to $925,000.

Vaughan said calls to 211, which assists county residents with finding needed services, were up, and the Salvation Army had a big increase in people it served, a large number being those who asked for help for the first time.

“Pantries have been having a hard time keeping shelves stuffed,” she said. “We were in front of this trend because we got hit with all the factory unemployment before the economy crumbled, so we’re a good two years into this. I don’t see it necessarily going a different direction right now. Hopefully we’re getting to the point where we start seeing a little bit of a turnaround.”

For now, the weather is warm and the demand for heating assistance is down. Heating bills, which require those with limited incomes to seek assistance for other necessities, are down, too.

Other indicators, however, show the need is still strong, Vaughan said, from the large amount of interest shown in recently announced federal stimulus funds available through the United Way to last year’s popular prescription discount card, which the United Way gave to 4,000 people and resulted in more than 11,500 claims.

“When we promoted that, the phone rang off the hook,” she said. “People are so desperate, and if they see anything they’re just jumping at it.”

Community reaching out

Doug said he’s been able to get as much help as he expected through local organizations. He has come to depend on help from an Alexandria church and gets energy assistance. The people who stop by his panhandling setup seem to be friendly as well.

“I go out to ... the few places I don’t get run off,” he said. “You don’t get too many people stopping, but once in while somebody does.”

Bruce MacMurray, chairman of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at Anderson University, said Americans run the gamut as far as their reactions to poverty.

“I think it ranges from more charitable, helping, serving kind of positions to some people who feel embarrassed, just kind of ignore or turn away, to those who blame the poor and hold them responsible for their own fate,” he said.

MacMurray has seen an increase in students interested in the department’s programs, all of which train students to work with those in poverty, from how to provide services to how to treat the poor who have been victimized or are criminal defendants.

He said students are becoming interested in volunteer opportunities, internships and campus ministries that serve the poor.

“Students have become very aware of those kinds of issues,” he said. “Particularly given the kind of church-based emphasis and Christian heart that many of our students come with, there’s a strong interest in working with the poor.”

Resources for the poor

Madison County is home to a myriad of resources to help deal with poverty, including housing assistance, food pantries and spiritual guidance.

Joy Plummer of the Operation Love ministry works to locate housing for local homeless people, fighting crowded shelters and even helping them find shelter in other cities, paying their bus fare to get there.

“So much of our population is in financial trouble, and though people don’t have as much to give, they are rallying around each other and giving their time to volunteer to help the community,” Plummer said.

Anderson’s Community Development Department works with organizations to provide low-income housing to first-time homebuyers, and the Anderson Housing Authority provides public and Section 8 housing with federal funds.

Cindy Mummert, executive director of Anderson Housing Authority, said about 400 people are on both the public housing and Section 8 waiting lists.

While organizations have taken responsibility for much of the work that needs to be done to take care of the county’s poor, funding often runs out before they make a dent in the growing problem. To help make up the slack, many churches and individuals chip in to form a grassroots effort to help the poor.

Ashley Wilson serves food to the homeless near the pedestrian bridge in downtown Anderson, bringing breakfast items in the mornings and offering kind words to those she helps.

Others across the community volunteer in a variety of ways, from teaching to counseling to donations, to help Madison County deal with the recession.