The Baehrs — Derek, Kellyanne and their two young daughters are five months behind on their mortgage payments. They sometimes eat at a soup kitchen and shop at a food pantry. They expect to lose their three-bedroom suburban house before the end of the school year.
“This is just awful, and I know that we are not the only ones going through this,’’ says Kellyanne, 37, an accounting clerk. Derek, 40, is disabled. “We used to try to go day by day. Now we are just trying to get to the end of each day.’’

The details of the Baehrs’ descent into financial ruin are singular, but their predicament has become painfully common.

Port St. Lucie, once the fastest-growing city in the country, full of families lured by affordable dream homes, is now pockmarked by more than 10,000 properties in foreclosure and drained by a 10.5 percent unemployment rate.

The grim landscape has prompted a St. Lucie county commissioner to propose declaring a state of emergency to access the $17.5 million in county reserve funds typically earmarked for natural disasters.

The money would be used to hire local people for public-works projects already approved in hopes of curbing soaring unemployment rates and saving homes.

”I know it’s never been done before, but we have also never had an economy this bad,’’ Doug Coward says. The proposal is part of a larger stimulus package the commission is expected to consider within 30 days. “We were hit with three hurricanes in 13 months, and it still didn’t destroy 10,000 homes. That was a natural disaster. This is a man-made disaster.’’
High foreclosure

In 2008, 10,764 properties were in the foreclosure process in the county, more than double the number in 2007. The county’s 2008 foreclosure rate is the third highest in Florida. Unemployment rates jumped 4.1 percentage points between December 2007 and the end of 2008.

Such statistics offer a startling contrast to the earlier success of the county, which in recent years had worked to diversify its economy by attracting biotech and health-science firms.

Five years  ago, home buyers rushed to the southern edge of St. Lucie County, settling into a cluster of bedroom communities with stretches of parks and churches and shopping centers. But for almost two years, the median price of an existing single-family house in the metro area that includes Port St. Lucie dropped, leaving scores of homeowners upside down with no equity and few options.

This unmistakeably bleak story manifests in the subdivisions’ vacant houses, in boarded-up businesses, in people out of work and in the struggle of soup kitchens and food pantries to fill growing needs.

Exactly a year ago, the St. Lucie Catholic Church started serving free hot meals every Thursday to about two dozen people. Last Thursday, 148 people showed up for pork patties, sautéed onions, kidney beans and rice.

Mark Boscarino, 51, a former car salesman, was among the first to arrive.

‘’The bottom fell out,’’ Boscarino says. “I have no work right now. My house is in foreclosure. They repossessed my vehicle already.’’

He came to Port St. Lucie almost two years ago from Deerfield Beach hoping to cash in on Central Florida’s boom. He bought a four-bedroom house for $202,000 in 2006 in one of the sprawling new communities. Today, he estimates the house is worth $150,000.

But like other struggling homeowners, he can’t sell. And he owes more than the value of the house. And he lost his job months ago.

So he lives off food stamps and hot meals at the Catholic church.

‘’My credit is shot. I look for work and I read my Bible,’’ Boscarino says. “That’s about it.’’

Across town in an industrial patch near the beach, people line up at 9 a.m., an hour before the doors open at Grace Emmanuel Church. They’re here for a couple of bags of canned goods, a frozen chicken or turkey and, if they want it, a prayer for health, spiritual and financial wellness.

But as the times become tougher, wellness becomes an ephemeral concept.

“You are just trying to come up with enough money to pay the rent or mortgage and eat,’’ says Scott Magill as he tinkers with his old boat and waits for the phone to ring.

A union ironworker, Magill has been jobless since early December, trying to make ends meet with what his wife and mother-in-law earn at their part-time jobs. He spends the days calling union shops, fighting to get his unemployment pay extended, checking the classifieds and worrying, especially worrying, in a garage full of unused tools.

‘’If something doesn’t happen quick, there’s going to be a lot more people going under,’’ says Magill, 46, who has a 7-year-old daughter. “There’s absolutely no job I wouldn’t take right now. I am just hopeful the president can help us before it’s too late.’’

Lost Job
The Baehrs moved here six years ago because of the weather — the heat was kinder to Derek, who suffers from Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare, genetic nervous-system disorder. Two years later, they paid $209,000 for a larger house on an attractive suburban street.

In time, Derek’s worsening health forced him to close his home-improvement business. Their property taxes spiked. Kellyanne got pneumonia and lost her job. She found another position, but not before their finances were spiraling.

‘’We got to the point where we had to either pay the mortgage or the monthly bills. We started living off the credit cards,’’ Kellyanne says. “Now we are at the point where we can’t use the credit cards and can’t pay the balances.’’

The bills have nearly broken them. There are no more family outings. No movies. Mackenzie, 11, and Gabrielle, 8, no longer go to friends’ birthday parties, because they can’t afford to take gifts.

Neighbors have banded together, donating food, even offering Derek scrap metal he can exchange for cash. He can still use his hands, so he carves canes and tiki totem poles. But nobody is buying.

‘’We have been told by family and friends to put food on the table and keep the lights on,’’ Kellyanne says, “and hope for the best.’’

By Audra D.S. Burch, Miami Herald

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