The descent from riches to rags can be punishing.
One year, Doug House said, he was living the middle-class dream making chicken Parmesan for customers at his restaurant in Mason City, Iowa. The next year, he was sleeping in a sweltering tent in Chattanooga and trading food stamps for booze.
This is a scary time in American history. Truth be told, many of us in the middle class are one job layoff, one difficult divorce or one character flaw away from sleeping under the stars.
House, 45, said his tipping point came in 2009.
“It was a bad year,” he said. “I found out on Valentine’s Day that I was getting divorced after 20 years. I went into a drinking binge that intensified when my youngest brother [Steven] was killed in Afghanistan.”