Carolyn Howell, 61, looks back over her life and says she had tried to do everything right. She went to school. She got a good job. She raised a family and then, ten years ago, in a single day, a crisis in her marriage caused her world to fall apart.
Over the last ten years, she went from earning six figures in her job as an executive at the College Board to her life now, scraping by on food stamps, a kind neighbor, and an opportunity for part-time work through the Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults that she began in October.
“I had it all,” said Howell, who remains perfectly groomed with her hair carefully tied back and a gold stud in her nose. “I did everything I was supposed to do, and then the bottom falls out.”
What has made it especially difficult for this youthful grandmother over the last ten years is the evidence of the comfortable life she left behind. The single bedroom in St. Albans that she rents for $160 a week is decorated with pictures of her children and a full wardrobe of business clothes that overflow from the severely limited closet space.
Howell said she never knew life in a housing project. She had no first-hand experience of what it was like to eke out a living on minimum wage. Unlike the familiar financial woes of today’s tumbling stock market, Howell’s problems branched from a failed marriage when she was still working as the Associate Director of Education and Finance at the College Board.
“I flipped out,” Howell said. “I just couldn’t get it together, and being the age I was—what do you do?”
After leaving her job and her husband, Howell moved in with her mother, who passed away soon after. While Howell inherited her mother’s house, she also inherited the debt accrued by a reverse mortgage. Forced to sell the house, Howell found herself homeless for the first time in her life at an age most people prepare to retire. From that point on, things only seemed to get worse.
