Whitfield County: Floor covering job losses reflected at assistance agencies in Whitfield

DALTON, Ga. — Job losses in Whitfield County’s massive floor-coverings industry are having a ripple effect on local charities.

Tina Bedwell is a cook at Harvest Outreach in Dalton, a shelter and community kitchen for people in need.

Ms. Bedwell said her own husband, John, was laid off from Oriental Weavers in April 2007, and she said many of the diners at Harvest Outreach tell her they’ve been laid off and can’t find a job in the carpet mills.

Layoffs and the struggling economy have steadily increased number of people coming to the Harvest kitchen for meals, she said. The staff has to get creative with its recipes to get everyone fed.

“We always run out of food and have to come up with something,” Ms. Bedwell said, as she and Mr. Bedwell prepared a big pot of rabbit stew Wednesday.

“Since I’ve been here the number of people eating here has more than doubled,” she said, and the facility is in constant need of donations to keep serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Sheila Reed, director of Harvest Outreach, said the community kitchen was feeding about 35 people per meal in February, but that’s now often 75 people or more.

“There have been so many layoffs,” she said.

The Georgia Department of Labor reported unemployment was at 7.1 percent in Dalton’s metro area in July, up from 6.5 percent in June. The department’s data also states that the metro area lost 1,200 jobs over that one-month span.

In August, the number of people filing for unemployment insurance benefits for the first time was 1,549, up 53 percent from August 2007.

One Harvest Outreach patron on Wednesday, who asked that his name not be used because of his circumstances, said he moved to the Dalton area three years ago because of the abundance of employment opportunities. But he lost his job earlier this year, and said he’s been unable to find work in a carpet mill or elsewhere.

“The people I talk to tell me it’s useless to try and get a job in a carpet mill,” he said. “You know, people say there are more millionaires (per capita) in Dalton than anywhere else, but I think there’s more homeless people here than millionaires.”

Holly Rice is director of the Family Support Council in Dalton, an organization designed to help prevent child abuse and also provide assistance to families looking for clothing and food. She said there has been a spike in clients in need over the past year, and it’s directly linked to the loss of textile jobs.

“There are more people looking for help that normally wouldn’t ask for help,” she said.

Both Ms. Rice and Ms. Reed said private donations are down when they’re needed most, another reflection on the economy.

Harvest Outreach has received $13,000 less in donations this year than at the same time last year, Ms. Reed said.

While jobs are scarce, people are apparently not fleeing the city like some officials believed they would.

Dalton City Schools officials anticipated enrollment numbers would dip as wage earners took their families elsewhere looking for employment. But city enrollment was actually up this year.

Whitfield County Schools’ enrollment has dipped slightly, but officials aren’t tying that to job losses.

Spokesman Eric Beavers said the data is not yet available on whether free and reduced price meals in schools have increased, but he said the five-year trend reflects a toughening economy.

“One indicator that the economy may be affecting our student population is an increase in the number of economically disadvantaged households, and we have seen those numbers increase annually during the past five years,” Mr. Beavers said.

Dalton City Councilman Charlie Bethel said almost everything in Whitfield County is related in some way to how the “Carpet Capital of the World’s” staple industry is faring.

“Floor covering is our largest employment sector,” Mr. Bethel said. “When business is down, paychecks are smaller and profits are smaller. When paychecks are smaller, spending is down and local merchants have less revenue and profits are smaller.

“Jobs are cut back or eliminated,” he continued. “Charitable needs increase and charitable donations tend to decrease. This is the story of slow economic times.”