Unemployed since last October and unable to find work, “Mary” takes medication to calm her nerves.

Day after day, the Auburn woman, laid off in a recession-related cutback last October, checks the mail for the long promised Social Security checks from the federal government that never come.

Wary of leaning overmuch on friends lest she wear out their good will, she watches with alarm as the days pass and bills pile up. She doesn’t have much money for food. She has no car and rides a bicycle. She wonders where to turn for help.

“I would like to be able to move,” said Mary, who asked that her name not be used in this article. “I can’t do anything. I’m stuck in this little box. Maybe I have one good friend, but I can’t depend on that person for everything. It’s very difficult for a person on a bike.

“…The question I am asking is where do you go when you are almost down and out in this community without making a lot of noise about it?” Mary asked. “What’s your next step after you can’t find somebody? What can I do? It’s a hard thing. Usually there are good people available for budgeting who would be helpful, only now, the economy seems so tight that nobody wants to help anybody. I feel that.”

Michael Hursh, Human Services Manager for the City of Auburn, sees a lot of Marys these days, and not always where one might expect them to be.

“A lot of the need presently is in areas or neighborhoods that are not traditional areas of need,” said Hursh.

As of July, the unemployment rate in Lakeland Hills was 12.1 percent compared to 9.5 percent throughout the rest of Auburn, according to Dave Baron, economic development manager for the City of Auburn.

South King County has always had a disproportionate share of people in need. At the same time, the area suffers from a dearth of non-profit agencies to help them.

But at all levels, Hursh said, the Auburn community has always stepped forward to help.

The City itself, for example, has committed as much as 1 percent of its general fund to directly support non-profit agencies that serve people in need, a commitment, he said, above and beyond the usual funding sources like United Way, King County and the state and federal governments.

Usually, the starting place for people like Mary is one of a handful of staple agencies, including, the Auburn Food Bank, Auburn Youth Resources and Pregnancy Aid. Staff there will sit down and talk with the distressed person and connect them with agencies that can be of the most help to them.

These agencies then work together in referrals and in maintaining relationships. The tight-knit, almost informal network of relationships in Auburn is something of an oddity on the south end, as non profits in other cities will tell you.

“Oh, yes, I hear about that all the time,” said Auburn Food Bank Director Debbie Christian.

“Each one of us working in this field knows if we’re working with a client and can’t meet their need, we pick up the phone, and it’s not an unknown agency that we refer them to,” said Hursh. “We call Rosie over at Pregnancy Aid, Debbie at the Auburn Food Bank, or Jim over at Auburn Youth Resources, and we find beds or shelter for the night, or we find the food for the pantry. We find emergency assistance, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of intentional relationship building. How relationships are maintained is not easily identified on a piece of paper. But we know the only way we are going to survive here on the south end is by a partnership that goes beyond a contractual agreement and is truly based in relationships, compassion and a family-style approach to community living.”

Hursh said local agencies will help on a one-time, two-time basis, so that when there is an interruption in income, people in danger of losing their permanent housing end up getting a short-time float grant to get them through.

Hursh said the traditional areas of need will always be there in a community where 54 percent earns a low-to-moderate income. Residents are familiar with doing what needs to be done to survive, and they do it well, he said. He said people support each other to maintain a quality of life that’s good for everybody, regardless of their economic situation.

“The reason we are self reliant is that Auburn has history of being ignored and left out of the funding cycle. We’ve been left to fend for ourselves for the last 50 years in a lot of ways. We’re always at the table and asking for help, but not expecting much. So we’re self reliant.”

Hursh noted that King County has a three-year, cost-cutting plan that will effectively end human services throughout the county as they are now known. That will demand a fundamental shift in thinking about a welfare state and of government support of its residents versus privatized, compassion-based support, he said.

“Auburn is very, very strong in its compassion-based private support of neighbors who are in need. Sometimes we take that for granted, but it is markedly different from any other city in this county,” Hursh said.

Hursh, who is also the City’s fire and police chaplain, said the sheer amount of need out there can be overwhelming.

“It’s hard to let some stories, some lives, go because it goes home with you. There have been times I have gotten home, called Debbie Christian at night and we figure out a way to get food or a meal to somebody I know we put up in a hotel with no money and nothing in their stomach. I have a hard time walking away from that,” Hursh said.