A little hope in hard times

Suburban America is often a land of comfortable jobs, of families who spend $50 for the convenience of takeout pizza, of those who can afford $200 fees for kids' soccer leagues.

Noemi Escamilla passes through this America when she travels along Lake Hills Boulevard to pick up groceries at the Hopelink food bank in Bellevue.

Escamilla, 52, lives in a different America, alone in a Bellevue apartment complex, with $2 in her checking account.

Injured in a June car accident, she can't work. She thanks her elderly mother in Utah for sending $20 so she can put gas in her 1991 Chevy Cavalier.

But Escamilla keeps up appearances. She is low-key, dressed in clean slacks and a shirt.

"In front of a crowd, in my appearance, in my pose, I try to be eloquent, presentable and businesslike," she said.

Running across her in the parking lot of the apartment complex, you wouldn't think she was struggling.

But if it wasn't for Hopelink, an Eastside agency that since 1971 has helped the poor with services ranging from emergency shelter to adult literacy, Escamilla would be lost. The agency, which operates the food bank where Escamilla shops and helps pay her heating bills, is one of a dozen organizations that receive aid from The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy.

"One thing that always comes up as an issue is that people don't see the Eastside as a place of poverty," said Alycia Coulter, supervisor of Hopelink's Energy Program. "People think that everyone here is wealthy, but the poverty is very present. You're a car crash away from going to the food bank."

Escamilla juggles her bills and has the math of her situation down pat.

On June 4, she was making $29,000 a year working in customer service for a mortgage firm. She was making twice the money she'd made previously as a waitress and was happy, seeing her life as progressing upward.

A single mother of four, Escamilla said she raised her family "pretty much on my own." Over the years, she had worked as a waitress, then at a hair salon, then as an office manager and then attended community college to study real estate. Her children now are all adults.

But on June 5, around 10 p.m. on a freeway near Twin Falls, Idaho, her life changed.

Escamilla and a friend, who both are Mormons, had rented a car to drive to Salt Lake City over that weekend to visit her friend's parents and attend church. They decided to drive around-the-clock, taking turns sleeping.

"I turned around to grab a blanket that was in the back seat," she remembered, so her friend in the front passenger seat would be more comfortable.

That's all it took for Escamilla to lose control of the car, which hit a ditch and rolled over three times.

Her friend suffered minor injuries.

It was quite otherwise for Escamilla.

She ended up with a cracked skull and eventually underwent four surgeries on her spine. For 90 days, she had to wear a metal halo so her neck would heal properly. The medical report about the accident said no drugs or alcohol were involved, and Escamilla said she did not receive a traffic citation.

These days, Escamilla undergoes physical therapy and takes five medications, including an antidepressant. She isn't able to work because she can't sit at a desk for any length of time. "I feel like a huge cement block is in my back. My muscles start burning. I have to lie down," she said.

A main concern for Escamilla is making her monthly payment so she can keep her health insurance.

Her disability insurance provides $1,440 a month.

There's the $643 insurance payment, and her rent is $715 a month.

That leaves $82 for everything else.

"She needed help for paying for heat and electricity. We helped with close to $400 one time," Coulter said of Escamilla. The agency also helped her register for low-income electricity and telephone rates, and it provides her with groceries from its food bank.

These days, Escamilla talks about becoming better physically and being able to resume her real-estate studies.

Then her mind drifts back to June 5 and that freeway in Idaho.

"In the blink of an eye," she said.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237