Family Profiles

My name is Albert. **   My wife and I are senior citizens living on a fixed income near Buda.  I am 78 and she is 75.  My wife has been sick for a long time. We both have Medicare, but the co-pays for medical treatment and prescriptions equal about half of our Social Security income each month.  Once we pay the utility bill, insurance and taxes, there is little left over for anything else. Our house is paid for, but it’s a struggle to keep up with all the bills.  Meals on Wheels brings us lunch three days a week but the extra groceries they bring at the end of the month from the food bank really help us make it. 

 

My name is Linda. **    I am a single mom working two jobs to support two children, aged 3 and 6.  To make ends meet, we share a two bedroom place in Wimberley with a friend of mine and her kids.  Childcare takes a big chunk of my check and each month I struggle to pay utilities and insurance, not to mention gas and groceries. I barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. There is no health insurance coverage.  I worry that if one of the kids gets sick and has to see the doctor or my car breaks down again, I don’t know what we are going to do. I get groceries from the local food pantry here in Wimberley.  That food means that my kids have something to eat each night.  I am so grateful for the help.

My name is Tom. ** My wife and I have two children, aged 11 and 14. We live in Kyle. We were doing fine until I got hurt on the job six months ago. We had to live on my just wife’s salary for awhile because it took over a month to receive my first worker’s compensation check. That really put us behind. Now, I only draw 60% of my salary until I can return to work. Our savings are almost gone and the credit cards are maxed out. For the first time in my life, I’m not sure how I am going to pay my bills. I never in a million years thought this would happen to us. At first, it was hard for me to go every Tuesday morning to the Catholic Church to get food from the food bank. I was so embarrassed. But that food really helps us out because we can take that money and put it somewhere else. 

My name is Paula. ** I have been disabled for about 10 years. I get by on Social Security and food stamps. I worked at a company in Austin for over 25 years and had a good future.  But my illness has left me totally disabled. To make ends meet over the years, I exhausted my savings, then my retirement, and eventually lost my home. Now I live in public housing in San Marcos. My home health aide comes a few times a week to help with medical care and cleaning chores. I do my best to stretch my disability check and food stamps but making ends meet at the end of the month is a real challenge. Each week the Housing Authority picks up food from the local food bank and delivers it to my door. The food stamps are never enough so these extra groceries are a real help.

** These profiles are composites of typical client stories. 
The names have been changed to protect privacy.