Liz Martin sits on the passenger’s side of her shabby gray van – the side away from the sun – which is parked on a Saturday afternoon next to the spot where her merchandise is on display at Berkeley’s Ashby Flea Market. She keeps her eyes on three stools supporting organized piles of colorfully embroidered used bed sheets and pillows folded in plastic bags. Martin, who is 82, has been a vendor at the flea market since it began more than 32 years ago, and she never has left her spot.
At first, she said, “There was nothing here. It was kind of a hard time but we stuck around. I used to make 75 cents a day, but I stayed here and the flea market got built up.” Martin is wearing a red spotted shirt and long colorful skirt; time has not had much effect on her dark skin. Through the van’s half-down window, she muses, “I really do not know why they called it a ‘flea market.’ All I know is that when they first said ‘flea market,’ I thought they were talking about selling fleas.” She bursts out laughing.
In fact, the flea market at the Ashby BART station is a Berkeley landmark, which many customers from around the Bay Area visit for the good deals. The market is open only on weekends, but it provides a valuable service to both the vendors who want to earn a living by selling new and used merchandise, and for customers looking for bargains.  Some people go to the market for the fun of the day or to just have a glimpse of the merchandise.
The market is divided into rows of stalls; the floor is covered with merchandise shaded by brightly colored umbrellas and small tents. One can find nearly anything needed to furnish a full house: records, jewelry, clothes, incense, tools, books – even African masks and old portraits of American celebrities. Groups of drummers sit next to the Ashby BART’s main entrance and play African music. The smell of hot dogs and Mexican food from mobile booths fill the air; children play around or cling to their parents’ clothes. On a perfect sunny day, the market is like an open mall where families can relax.
People also find it a good place to re-sell used objects, or buy secondhand items to furnish their houses. A shopper named Elizabeth, who gave only her first name, was looking for a good, cheap piece of furniture for her daughter who recently bought a condo and ran out of money to furnish the place. “Furniture is just as good old as new,” she said. “People come to the flea market both because they want to recycle things and for clothing. You see here things you do not see anywhere else.” But Elizabeth predicted that the slow economy would push people to try shop carefully. “After a few more months when needs pile up, I expect more people would be looking at flea markets and thrift stores,” Elizabeth said. As she walked away, she kept her eyes open for worthy items she might buy.
For some vendors, the flea market provides a second income, if not the main way they pay their bills. Dray, who goes only by her first name, is a 58-year-old woman with 18 grandchildren, who works part-time building computers for Oakland high schools and sells jewelry and clothes at the flea market on weekends.  As she uses her long red artificial nails to arrange her colorful handmade jewelry, displayed atop three stools, she says, “I come here to supplement my income and pay my bills to go back to school next fall.”
The flea market was established in 1976 right after Ashby BART was built. It was formed to sell antiques and used objects. The vendors began to organize their merchandise on stools and advertised their trade by telling friends.  People began to come over to browse the merchandise and maybe buy something. Today, the flea market is crowded on weekends, with more than 190 vendors and dealers.
Despite its popularity, the Ashby Flea Market has not escaped some threats to its location throughout the years. The last one, according to the market’s Web site, was a proposal by the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation to housing on the west parking lot. But Errol Davis, the flea market’s general manager, says that although the issue is not entirely settled, he considers it a “cold case” that is unlikely to move forward anytime soon. “I think they stopped because of the economy,” he says. “We are fine for now.”
And as jewelry seller Dray points out, the country’s recession is actually good for the flea market and its culture of deal-making. “People do not have money to buy expensive stuff. I’m helping the economy, I’m helping the people,” she says. “It is a good place to bargain and make money.”

The tropical crops of Maria Inés Catalán’s youth don’t grow in Hollister. Instead of winding through the papaya and mango trees of her native Guerrero, Mexico, here, wearing black loafers caked in mud from the past week’s rain, she tramples weeds, carefully stepping over the kale, broccoli and artichoke plants that thrive in the Northern California winter.

Catalán stops mid-field, spotting something hidden in one of the plants.

“Mira!” she says excitedly. “Look!” When she smiles her round sun-chapped cheeks seem to grow, and her already slanted eyes become thin lines on her face. Her brown hair is streaked with a mix of grey and orange-yellow strands.

Brushing the plant leaves aside, she cups an artichoke gently in her hand and holds it proudly for all to see. It is huge, almost the size of her palm, and the green is stained with a light, washed-out purple.

“Qué chulada,” she says, almost to herself. What a beauty.

Catalán Family Farms, which María Inés Catalán owns, lies in a flat stretch of land surrounded by emerald green hills between the Silicon and Central Valleys. Once a farm worker, Catalán became one of the first Latina immigrant organic farmers in the country when she started fifteen years ago.

Today she sells her produce at farmers’ markets throughout the Bay Area, including three in Berkeley and one in the Temascal neighborhood in North Oakland. While the term “organic” often carries with it a highbrow, not to say high price, connotation, Catalán also sells at wholesale price to Farm Fresh Choice, a Berkeley-based food justice project that works to make organic produce accessible to low-income communities of color. Just as her desire to make healthy eating an option for the surrounding Latino community comes from her own experience as an immigrant, so her decision to go organic had more to do with her personal history with the land, than with pure business sense.

***

Standing in her Berkeley Farmer’s Market stall, wearing a black apron decorated with small embroidered vegetables, Catalán rapidly weighs heads of lettuce and bunches of celery, tells the customer the price in a rough but matter-of-fact English, and gives them their change with a gentle “Thank You.”

And she really is grateful. People are buying less than they used to before the economy went sour. “They used to buy two bunches of chard,” she says, “and now they buy only one, because they’re afraid of being left with no money.”

Small mounds of vegetables are spread out in front of her, and behind her hang two papers, both declaring her produce to be certified Organic. She points to them with a shake of the head, recalling how difficult it was to get the certification when she first started. There were so many forms, most in English, and it was dizzying to maneuver through the various agencies and departments in charge of the process.

But what angers her the most, as she tells it, is that once she did get certified and started selling at the markets, other vendors gave her a hard time. These fellow farmers, always white Americans, would come up to her stand and inspect her produce. “They would ask me if I grew it,” she says, “or if it was really organic, like they didn’t believe me.”

A funny question, since Catalán’s background is firmly rooted in the concept of organic farming. “It’s called organic certification here in the US,” she says,  “but for us in Mexico, it’s traditional agriculture. My grandparents grew organic. Simply because of our culture we are organic farmers.” The only difference, she says, is that in the US, “there’s regulations and politics to certify a ranch, to work in what you want to do, like to do, and are used to doing.”

But when Catalán migrated to California, this traditional agriculture was lost to her, and for years she labored in the pesticide-laden broccoli and strawberries fields of Monterrey County. She remembers it as painstaking, dehumanizing work. “They use you like a machine,” she says. “They tell you to fill…one box a minute, or 60 boxes of broccoli per hour. And by paying you a wage, they know how much they are going to produce per day or per hour.”

Catalán partly attributes her current farming to a need for healthier work.  “And as I learned that being an organic farmer was about about taking care of our environment, our air, soil, our water,” she says, “I made the decision to farm organic.”

Recalling childhood moments of running with goats and playing in piles of harvested peanuts on her father’s farm, Catalán says that even as a farm worker she dreamt of someday owning a farm where her grandchildren could grow up as she did.

“A lot of people told me I was crazy. They said, ‘We are in the United States, and being able to own your own farm and be your own boss and do what you like to do because of tradition is impossible.’”

Now, Catalan’s six grandchildren are growing up on a farm as she once dreamt, even if, in the end, they decide they don’t want to be farmers, themselves. “As they grow they are learning to love the land and to produce their own food, which is the most important thing,” she says proudly.

***

“It’s a man’s world, agriculture,” says Catalán, nibbling on a bright yellow mustard flower as she trudges through the muddy rows. “Usually the man is in front, and the woman is behind,” she says, “But here, I’m in front and my husband is behind!” she lets out a hearty laugh and looks back. “What do you think, viejo?” she calls out to her husband Javier, whom she always refers to as her “old man.”  He is following close behind with one of Catalán’s grandsons; he smiles and shrugs, unbothered.

Fifteen years ago, Catalán took part in three-year long Small Farmer Education training offered by the Agricultural and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), which trains low-income farmers-many of them Spanish-speaking former farm workers-to grow and market organic produce. She was the only woman in the course, and her fellow farmers refused to take her seriously, especially when it came to learning how to operate heavy farm machinery. They would laugh and tell her that she should be at home taking care of her husband.

“They respect her now,” says her son Juan, “because they know that she is helping everyone.” Juan, whom Catalán brought from Mexico with his three siblings when he was seven years old, used to work el fil-the field-with his mother as a young boy. Now, he helps her run the farm. At one point when she is not around, he proudly shows off a leather-bound “Certificate of Appreciation” awarded to his mother by the Department of Agriculture in recognition of her work for Latino farmers. He points to the gold seal with his finger, as though to highlight the official nature of her work.

Catalán is, after all, founder and current president of Pequeños Agricultores de California (Small Farmers of California), an organization of Latino organic farmers mainly concentrated in San Benito County. She is also the organization’s only female member.

On this day, Catalán is in a hurry to get to an 11 o’clock meeting with another organization to discuss the lack of access to financial resources that Latino organic farmers have. The organization works almost as a cooperative, although she doesn’t use those terms. Farmers grow their crops and mutually help each other commercialize their product. Oftentimes, Catalán has given other farmers small interest-free loans, and helps new farmers maneuver through the complicated organic certification process she herself struggled with years ago.

And farming continues to be a struggle. Although the Catalán’s business is staying afloat, this year-during what has been referred to as California’s most severe drought in history-seems particularly daunting.  The farm might not get any irrigation water from the municipal reservoir, because the state’s priority is supplying the cities first. There is even talk that the county may start to charge for using local well water. Many farmers in the north, says Catalán, have decided not to even plant this season.

“But if nothing gets planted and there is no alternative, there won´t be any food,” she says, her voice mixture of anger and despair. “That’s what they don’t see.”

Last week’s rain has helped the crops, but not so much Catalán’s market sales. Fewer people come to farmers’ markets when it rains. And there’s another economic issue: the high cost of labor. Catalán reaches into the middle of the lettuce crop and pulls out a handful of weeds-if this was a “conventional” farm, she says, there wouldn’t be any weeds because of the chemicals used on the plants. But in organic farming, the only way to get rid of the weeds is to pull them out by hand; because of that, she estimates that out of the $30,000 it takes for her to maintain the farm each month, about $20,000 of that goes to the contractor who hires the laborers.

Though happier as a farmer than as a farm worker, Catalán has yet to own the land on which she farms. She leases it, paying $5,100 a month in rent, with the option to buy. Without any outside financing, buying land is a difficult goal to attain, but for Catalán, it’s something she is working towards.

“Imagine if it was like Zapata said,” she says, referring to the Mexican revolutionary who fought for land reform in the early 20th Century, “and the land belonged to those who worked it.”

***

Amidst the early morning garble of chickens and cows and the neighing of horses, Catalán lets out a squeal.

“Está naciendo!” (“It’s being born!”) She gasps and points to a goat standing perfectly still inside a pen, with what looks like a lump of slime drooping from between its legs. “Viejo!”  she calls out to her  husband. “Está naciendo!”

“I always get nervous,” she says, wringing her hands.  “Sometimes the babies get trampled on by the mother and die.” In one quick second the slimy pouch drops onto the hay, red liquid gushing out after it, and the baby goat squirms for a few minutes before attempting to wobble on its still-weak legs.

Catalán sighs in relief. It’s as though she’s never seen a goat being born before, but in the same pen there are eleven other kids, along with eighteen adults.

She hopes to certify them as organically raised, so she can sell the meat to restaurants. She already sells produce to a handful of restaurants in San Francisco and the East Bay, in addition to selling through Community Supported Agriculture programs in Monterrey. These new endeavors, she says, are the only way to keep the farm running in hard times.

Later that day, she returns to the barn area to check in on the newborn goat. It’s standing now, stumbling to find its mother´s teat. The anxiety that the kid will get trampled comes back for a minute; Catalán presses her husband to take the two goats out of the pen, so the baby isn’t in danger. He disappears and comes back with an old towel.

“I´ll do it,” says Catalan, grabbing the towel and briskly walking into the pen. She gently scoops the kid up in the blanket and lays it outside. They tie the mother to a post next to it. She calms down again.

Dame un cigarro, she says bluntly, putting out her palm. “Give me a cigarette.” No “please,” no “Thank you.”  Her husband pulls out a pack of Marlboro reds and hands her one along with a lighter.

Catalán props herself onto a plastic barrel, the blue of her fleece sweater almost blending into the pale blue of the sky, the fields rolling back behind her. She hides the hand holding the cigarette behind the barrel so the smoke doesn’t blow in anyone else’s face. Her legs dangle, crossed at the ankles, and in between deep drags of her cigarette she begins to talk dreams: Of starting a commercial kitchen, as she calls it, where members of the Small Farmers of California would be able to jar or pickle their produce in order to preserve and sell it. Of letting the chickens lay eggs wherever they want so there will be 800 chickens and she can start selling organic eggs. Of inseminating a cow with world-renowned Japanese bull semen so she can sell organic beef. Of expanding her crops to include more Mexican produce – nopal cactus and different varieties of chiles that she can dry. Of homemade salsas she can sell at the farmers’ markets.

The problem, she says, pushing her finger into the air and moving her entire body forward to make the point, is that there are no resources to help already established organic farmers expand in this way. Although there are organizations that help them get started, such as the one that helped her fifteen years ago, there is nothing to help them “take it farther.”  This, she explains, is what her meeting will be about later today.

Which reminds her that she has to get moving.

“I think I was a queen in a past life,” she says with a grin in between smokey breaths, “Just that this time I was born poor.”  She belts out a laugh and turns to her husband.

“Right, viejo?”

NEWARK – In a public forum Monday night, the city managers of Fremont, Newark and Union City detailed the stresses on their budgets because of falling tax revenues and the state budget crisis.

(Right to Left) Larry Cheeves, city manager of Union City, John Becker, city manager of Newark, Fred Diaz, city manager of Fremont, and Dominic Dutra, moderator, at a public forum in Newark on Nov. 17. Photo by Mateen Kaul

The city managers opened the forum with brief presentations showing how they were struggling to balance their budgets. All three have implemented belt-tightening measures and hiring freezes to try and trim expenses.

Fred Diaz, Fremont city manager, said the economic situation was so dire, it could be considered a “catastrophic emergency,” adding that the city of Fremont could conceivably dip into its $22 million fund reserved for disasters if the situation worsened. “What’s the use of all that money lying around if the salaries of fire and police officers are not getting paid?” he said.

Barack Obama’s historic win has moved many Chinatown residents, who saw the election of a black President as an inspiration and also a potential blessing for the community, but some business owners are pessimistic about an imminent recovery from the current economic hardships.

“When Obama breaks the glass ceiling, it means that pretty much any child of color really does have a chance to become the president of the United States,” said Oakland City Council Member Jean Quan, a Chinese American Democrat.

“Secondly Obama is much more in tune to the urban issues. That’s really important because most Asians still live in urban cores,” Quan said.

She said programs “that were good for Asians” cut under the Republicans, could get rescued after Obama took office and “many more appointments for Asian Americans in the administration” could be made.

“Being raised in Hawaii, he is much more attuned to cultures of Asians and Asian Pacific Islanders,” Quan said.

Cheng Chunzhen, a 73-year-old former teacher who moved to the United States from China four years ago, said she was deeply moved by Obama’s life stories.

“He’s so diligent, otherwise he couldn’t have come this far,” Cheng said. “It’s really not easy for someone from an ethnic minority to achieve that.”

But many in the business community didn’t expect the Obama presidency to bring a quick fix for Chinatown’s sagging businesses, which were hurt by the national downturn in the economy, Oakland’s high crime rate and increasing competition.

“We’ll see how Obama does. He definitely deserves a chance, but it’s all up to how he handles and whom he picks for the cabinet,” said Jennie Ong, Executive Director of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Ong said Obama’s election certainly gave the Chinese community a positive feeling as an ethnic minority, but people were more occupied with worries about the economy for the moment.

“Chinatown used to be the destination for Asian goods in the East Bay. People came here shopping and eating in the restaurants,” Ong said. “Believe it or not, we were the fourth biggest source of sales tax revenues for the city. Now the ranking is very low.”

Ong attributed the decline to the city’s “crime image”, the weak overall economy and competition from Ranch 99, a supermarket chain featuring Asian goods that had been expanding across the Bay Area.

“We are surrounded by Ranch 99. It really hurts Chinatown businesses,” Ong said.

Still, Ong was hopeful that things would get better under Obama.

“Let’s say there is hope,” Ong said.

Even for S&M fans, the pain of the current economy can be too much.

At last weekend’s Exotic Erotic Expo and Ball, a tradeshow and party billed as a “Celebration of Flesh, Fetish, and Fantasy,” small adult entertainment businesses said they are facing bleak balance sheets, with declines in customer spending and decreased access to credit for their own businesses.

Sitting behind a display of vacuum pumps for penis enlargement and erectile dysfunction, Dr. Joel Kaplan bemoaned the downturn his business has faced this past year. Kaplan said his regular market of bodybuilders and jocks have cut back purchases by 40 to 50 percent.

“They are just lookey loos,” he said, gesturing to the costumed guests at the Expo. “Nobody seems to have any money.” Kaplan said in his 12 years in business, the economy had never previously effected his sales.

Nationally, consumer confidence dropped in October to the lowest point since the private Conference Board started tracking the data in 1967. Economists at Global Insight said real consumer spending has likely reached the lowest level since 1980.

Attendance at the Ball and Expo was down by more than 50 percent this year. Press releases said a combined 28,000 attended last year and predicted 30,000 would shell out $69 for the Ball and $20 for the Expo this year. However this year’s preliminary attendance estimates showed an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people went to the Ball and 3,500 people attended the Expo, according to Christopher Buttner, publicist for the event.

Walking through the Expo in a sea-foam green corset, Atlanta-based Mylie Moore said the day rates for porn actresses like herself are down on average $120 per day, and that’s for those luckily enough to get work at all. When she was last in the Bay Area early this summer, she said she made $20,000 in a month and a half during 21 different shoots. Last weekend, she had already spent two weeks in the Bay Area without one gig.

While contracting credit markets have halted consumer spending, shrinking business lines of credit have not differentiated between G- and X-rated companies. Lashieka Wright, owner of Silky Seductions Lingerie, said she worked for years to improve her credit rating to receive a small business loan. She said she finally upped her score just as banks cut back on lines of credit.

To pay for a space at the Exotic Erotic Expo, Wright said had to dip into savings. She used to sell her satin negligees at house parties, but now she said she must do more aggressive marketing. “They were buying, but now they don’t,” she said.

While self-employed and small business owners said they felt the economic pressure, larger companies said business was still brisk. With more than 40 adult boutiques and bookstores in California and Hawaii, Adult MegaStores had the largest booth space at the Expo. Chris “Ziggy” Lovato usually works at their Livermore store, Not Too Naughty, and manned a table at the Expo. He said store sales remain strong.

His store’s wall of handcuffs is full on Tuesdays and needs to be restocked by each Friday. “People that come to buy porn aren’t ashamed at throwing down money,” he said.

While bondage paraphernalia salesman Sam Hen said the most expensive items were the first to stop selling, contributing to a decrease in sales by 50 to 60 percent, Lovato said he has not seen a drop in pricey products.

Premium condom company MaxPro has also not seen its market erode. Mike Guido, director of marketing and product development for MaxPro Condoms, said sales are trending “in the upward direction” since launching last year. MaxPro enjoys the support of parent company of IBI Synergy, which in turn is part of Malaysia-based NRS Global Partners, a leading supplier in the latex dipped products industry.

Adult MegaStore’s Lovato said he believes adult purchasing behavior is less about the economy and more about people thinking porn shops are socially acceptable.

“If I had my way, I’d talk them into getting the Bentley, as opposed to the Honda Civic,” he said.

Story by Tyler Sipe

California’s unemployment numbers continue to show teenagers are among the hardest hit in the flailing economy.

The state’s Employment Development Department reported in August that teenage unemployment rate — among 16 to 19 year olds — was 21.9 percent, an increase of more than 4 percent from the same time last year.

Fremont resident Phuong Nguyen, 18, said she has been actively looking for a job since she graduated high school in June.  She said she no longer wants to depend on her parents, and needs extra income to pay for school expenses and leisure activities.

“My parents are getting on my case,” said Nguyen, who was talking with friends outside of class at Ohlone Community College in Fremont’s Mission San Jose on Monday afternoon.  “I have a lot of ‘I owe you’s’ for friends and my sisters.”

Nguyen has applied to a half-dozen jobs in the service sector, sending her resume to retailers like Target and fruit-smoothie company Jamba Juice.  Five months later, she remains jobless and has yet to receive a single callback from a perspective employer.

Overall, the state unemployment rate of 7.7 percent remained the same in August and September.  However, there was 2.2 percent gain from August 2007 to the same month this year, the largest annual rate increase since July 1991, according to EDD.

Many Fremont area teenagers say they are weathering the storm by continuing to rely on family, with future job prospects in the state looking less rosy for teenagers.

Job growth in the state is expected to stagnate in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, according to the independent economic research group UCLA Anderson Forecast.

The forecast estimates the California labor market will not improve until the real estate industry begins to turn around.

Michael Daoudi, owner of Mr. Mikey’s Country Store, said he hasn’t hired a new employee at his downtown Niles convenient store in more than a year.  He said with the weak economy, there’s been less of a turnover.

“Teenagers are reliable employees because they have the energy and they want the paycheck,” said Daoudi, who opened the store in 2002.  “But we won’t be making any hires with the way the economy is going.”

Daoudi is not alone.

Businesses nation wide continue to cutback or institute hiring freezes, a partial reaction to a decrease in consumer spending and increased unemployment which nationally was 6.1 percent in September.

Yvonka Headley, a counselor who heads Ohlone Community College’s Student Success Center, said students should practice their interviewing skills, polish their resumes and network with people in industries of interest in order to become more marketable.

“Employers are more likely to hire teens who have a proven work ethic,” said Headley, who councils about four students a month on career building and opportunities.  “I encourage students to intern and gain valuable work experience.”

Castro Valley residents Justin Lalor, 19, and Alex Omalza, 21, spent a portion of one Monday afternoon strolling down Fremont’s busy Paseo Padre Parkway, looking for job wanted signs in area business windows.

Lalor quit his job at a local restaurant that he worked at for the past seven months.  He said in the past, he had no difficulty finding work.  However, he admits the current labor force is a lot tighter and more competitive.

“It’s scary right now,” Lalor said. “But I feel pretty confident I’ll find work.  It might just take a little longer.”

Rep Pete Stark, D-Fremont, has called for investment in public infrastructure to create jobs and ease the current economic crisis, even if it means running up the deficit.

Congressman Pete Stark (2nd from right) speaks at an economic forum in San Leandro on Saturday, Oct 18.

“No city or county in the country doesn’t have a plan on the shelf for building something. We should invest in those plans so they’ll have to hire people to dig ditches, run wires and do the plumbing,” Stark said at an economic forum at the San Leandro Public Library on Saturday.

Stark voted against the bailout package for Wall Street recently passed by Congress, that allows the Treasury to buy up to $700 billion worth of bad assets from troubled banks. On several occasions during the two-hour event, he received loud, spontaneous applause from the audience whenever the vote was mentioned.

Fremont, considered the “Gateway to Silicon Valley,” may be an expensive suburb, but it is also home to a hidden homeless population.

The cost of rental properties in Fremont is higher than San Francisco; the city also has a larger number of homeless children than the national average. And the recent economic downturn has caught these homeless in a painful squeeze.

Louis Chicoine, executive director of the Tri-City Homeless Coalition, said that Fremont has between 700 and 1,000 homeless people on any given night.

“There has been a five to 10 percent increase over the past year resulting from a chronic housing problem and the nation’s economic state,” he said.

Bonnie Wilson, the Coalition’s volunteer coordinator, has witnessed this increase at the Sunrise shelter, Fremont’s largest homeless shelter.

“We have rooms for up to ten families and there’s 33 families on a waiting list with people calling everyday,” said Wilson.

Kevin and Sarah Buford and their two children, ages four and six, picked at their food at the Centerville Presbyterian Church, which holds a biweekly free dinner program. This was their first visit to a free meal program.

“I did custom flooring but there’s no work because no one’s building homes. I just couldn’t keep up with the bills, so we were evicted,” said Kevin Buford, 33.

His wife Sarah, 29, wiped mascara from her puffy eyes. She spent an hour talking with the pastor of the church, crying about finding housing for the night.

“He just gave me a list [of shelters] and did a prayer for me,” she said, “All the shelters are closed now. Our stuff’s in our truck so we can’t sleep there. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Sarah Buford said that she is grateful her children are young enough not to fully understand what is going on, and she is committed to keeping them in school to maintain some consistency.

This consistency has been difficult for Bridget (who did not want to be identified by her last name) and Steve Rusher’s three children, a son, eight, and two daughters, 11 and 18.

The family has been in and out of shelters for more than three years, often sleeping in the cab of Rusher’s big rig truck.

“You have to know how to work the system to get any help and the shelters are a joke,” said Bridget.

She specifically referred to the Sunrise shelter’s sister program, Winter Relief, which operates at six different churches from November to April throughout the tri-city region.

Rusher, 47, was frustrated that the family was forced to change churches every 30 days and that there was no communication with the children’s schools.

“I’ve had to pull the kids out of school three times because they [program administrators] said they had to be at a school closer to the churches,” said Bridget.

Bridget said that the shelter never gave her children the school supplies they were supposed to receive as a part of the California McKinney-Vento homeless children’s act. She also said that the children were routinely made fun of at school because she did not have access to a washing machine to clean their clothes.

Out of all these factors, Bridget’s biggest complaint was that “then they [program administrators] made me choose between having a roof over our head or my kids going to the doctor.” Bridget’s said that her ex-husband was abusive to her and her children. As a result, she said that her two youngest children suffer from attention deficit hyper-activity disorder, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We had notes proving that they had doctors’ appointments and would miss curfew. But they didn’t care,” said Bridget, “So we got kicked out because I wasn’t going to jeopardize my kids’ health.”

Sitting on the floor of the church with her five-year-old son, Jane (who did not want to be identified by her last name), 26, is worried about his future. Jane said she became homeless after running away from her ex-husband who was beating her.

One night, the police raided the tent shelter she was living in, arresting everyone. After testing her urine for drugs (which came up negative), “The police came into my cell and told me I was pregnant.”

Jane was in and out of shelters, dodging attacks from her ex-husband, before finally securing a Section 8 apartment. Section 8 provides government sponsored subsidized housing for low-income families and individuals. “I’m proud to take care of my place, proud to be there,” said Jane

Jane is on disability and would like to go to college and have a career one day, but is pessimistic about the status of the economy. Pointing to her son, she said, “I want to see him go to college. So I really hope things brighten up or everyone’s in for it.”

Story and photo by Tyler Sipe

The recent precipitous decline of the stock market is hitting Fremont seniors particularly hard.

In the past 15 months alone, Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion – or about 20 percent overall, according to Congressional budget analysts and reported by the Associated Press.

At the Fremont Senior Center, the economy was on the mind of about two-dozen residents attending a current events discussion group held every Wednesday.

Many of the attendees noted increased stress caused by concern for their dwindling investment and retirement accounts, which help sustain their living expenses.

Mission San Jose resident Shirley Lancaster, 74, said she reviewed her most recent investment statement, which disclosed a decrease in her retirement fund of more than $30,000 in one months time.

 “I’ve been watching my retirement go downhill,” said Lancaster, who blames the Bush administration for the nation’s recent economic malaise.  “I’m in it for the long haul and definitely hoping for better times.”

However, Lancaster said she is not too worried about her living standard in the current economic environment, because her retirement portfolio is diverse and she saved portions of her paychecks during her 20-year career working at Macy’s department store.

She said her greatest concern is for the younger generations, who are not particularly frugal or keen on saving.

“When we were kids we worked,” Lancaster said. “Now days you got to pay the kid to take out the garbage.

“It’s Christmas every day for today’s youth.”

Fremont resident Sid Glickfield, 83, shared similar sentiments.  He and his wife Helen Glickfield, 83, lost more than $35,000 in stock related investments during September.

As a result, the two said they intend on cutting back on unnecessary expenses.  The duo plan on having fewer dates to area restaurants and examine the newspaper more thoroughly for deals and coupons.

“To hell with consumerism,” said Glickfield, speaking about his perception of Americans’ spending habits.  “That’s what got our country in this mess, everyone spends on the cuff.”

Glickfield said he also see’s a lot of similarities between today’s current economic downturn and The Great Depression – an era marked by a decade of double-digit unemployment, falling incomes and a stock market collapse.

Barbara Reed, 77, of Fremont, said she’s a byproduct of The Great Depression.  Many of her spending habits were learned from her mother, who raised her as a single parent on an income of about $100 a month during the 1930’s while living in San Francisco.

“We didn’t have a cent extra,” Reed said.  “We ate everything out of cans.”

Reed said learning from her mother’s frugal spending habits has helped her weather bad economic times.  Reed said she lives at the poverty level, relying on social security and savings equaling about $1,200 a month. Her only assets include her paid-off condominium and green 1973 Volkswagen Beetle.

Reed said she has always examined price tags and frequently travels to three different stores in order to find the best deals for all of her living needs.

“I don’t think people have realized what may happen to them if this bail out doesn’t work,” she said. “Some things point to a second Great Depression.”

Copper metal has become the new gold standard in the underground economy.

Fremont and other East Bay cities have seen a dramatic increase in copper theft, especially since the commodity has risen above $3 a pound.

Fremont Police Detective Bill Veteran said the theft of copper and other metals has reached epidemic proportions, and said he believes most of the offenders in the Tri-City area are drug addicts.

“With any dope abuser, they need money and they need it quick,” said Veteran, who’s been an officer for 23 years. “It’s really a crime of opportunity and the reason I think they’re stealing is because the chance of confrontation with somebody is pretty remote.”

The Fremont Police Department does not keep official records documenting the number of thefts involving stolen metals, or the number of arrests made in association with stolen metals. But Veteran said the department gets several calls a week from people reporting stolen copper, aluminum and brass objects.

Miguel Belasquez, a foreman with MCON Construction, removes partially destroyed copper wires from the Niles Square housing development. Belasquez said thieves have targeted the site on numerous occasions, targeting higher priced metals like copper.

“(They) can steal 20-pound brass fittings and it’s a lot more profitable than picking up aluminum cans and recycling them,” Veteran said. “So (copper and brass) is unfortunately becoming a commodity of choice.”

Veteran said locals have reported sewer covers, metal plaques, sculptures and even a copper urn stolen from area properties.

According to Veteran, the most popular target for metal thieves are construction sites.

Todd Jegglie, a superintendent with Standard Pacific Homes, has been laboring on the 40-unit Niles Square housing development in Fremont for more than two years.

In that time, Jegglie said Niles Square, featuring $500,000 three-bedroom homes, has been hit by thieves on six different occasions, the last theft occurring two weeks ago.

Thieves are attracted to Niles Square because each residential unit contains about $4,000 in copper wire and plumbing.

“It’s incredibly frustrating for us,” Jegglie said. “(Thieves) will rip the whole house apart, even when families (are) ready to close in on a housing deal in two weeks.”

Jegglie said the problem of metal theft has forced construction workers and developers to think creatively in hiding expensive construction material, including burying metal products a foot underground. Some developers have also installed cameras on site or hired security guards.

However, Jegglie said security officers cost more than $8,000 a month and would not be economical for smaller developments like Niles Square.

“It’s going to continue regardless,” Jegglie said. “(Thieves) know there’s money (in stealing metal) and there’s no way of stopping them.”

Nationwide, theft of copper and other metals is estimated to cost $1 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Despite the growing problem, few have solutions in curtailing metal theft.

Officer Veteran said despite the epidemic, police departments can’t devote time and resources to a crime that is hard to solve since material often doesn’t have tracking numbers.

“It’s not an extremely high priority for us,” Veteran said. “We don’t have five or 6 detectives chasing down copper wire.

“If something is unique enough, we’ll go investigate it. But it’s tough, because you can’t tell what’s stolen.”

It costs approximately $300 for 100-feet of copper wire. The Niles Square development has about $4,000 of copper in each residential unit, making it and similar sites, popular for metal bandits.

Veteran and Jegglie agree recycling facilities need to be more cautious in purchasing stolen metals from thieves.

Richard Valle, president of Tri-CED community recycling in Union City, decided the only way to avoid purchasing metal which may have been stolen.

“In previous years, we got material from homeowners or contractors in small quantities,” said Valle, who has owned Tri-CED since 1980. “Then about five years ago, people began bringing in huge quantities and their stories didn’t make sense.

Valle said people often turned in spools of unused copper, and to him, it was a sign that the metal was stolen.

“We got out (of buying metals) because we didn’t want to be in the business of buying stolen goods.”

But, for some East Bay residents, selling metals legally is how they put food on the table or fill their gas tanks.

Fremont resident Charlie Miller, 60, scavenges the city for aluminum products, looking for cans, chairs, hub caps and other material.

Miller, who is disabled, said he uses the money to fill up his gas tank, which costs about $30.

“I don’t make nothing,” said Miller, of recycling aluminum. “Just enough to pay for my gas.”

But even in the underground world of metal scavenging, Miller knows the value of copper.

“Copper is like gold.”