Aaron Glantz

Allen Zebrowksi, 57, has run out of unemployment benefits

For Allen Zebrowksi, the debate in Washington over extending unemployment benefits has become largely irrelevant. 

On Aug. 25, the 57-year-old former brokerage-house clerk received his last unemployment check, after 99 weeks on the dole.

Now, Zebrowksi, who lived for 21 years in an apartment in the Lower Haight, sleeps at the Episcopal homeless shelter at 8^th and Howard.

“It’s quite an experience," he said. "Most of the people there are either drug addicts or mental patients. I lost 90 percent of my possessions. I just gave them away.”

Zebrowski is one of tens of thousands of Bay Area residents who have been unemployed so long that they’ve exhausted even the extended benefits the federal government made available during this recession.

In October alone, the California Employment Development Department reported that more than 57,000 local workers saw their benefits expire.

Even as Congress and the president reach an agreement to restore extended unemployment benefits, it won’t help these workers, because they’ve already used them up.

“What’s really disturbing is the number of people who may never work again,” said Abby Snay, executive director of Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), one of the largest job training and placement agencies in San Francisco. JVS has received $1.3 million in federal stimulus funding for its programs.

Many of the workers laid off in this recession are close to retirement, Snay said, and employers are reticent to offer them jobs. 

“People are cashing in their retirement,” she said.

Those without savings to fall back on, like Zebrowski, are turning to local food banks, soup kitchens and homeless programs.

Snay said it has never been harder to help the unemployed find work. In the fiscal year ending June 2007, before the recession began, JVS had 1,205 clients and was able to help 944 find work.

Last year, their client load surged to 3,126, but only 900 of them found jobs.

Statewide, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are five unemployed workers for every job opening.

According to the state labor department, 374,000 workers were unemployed in the Bay Area, including 42,500 in San Francisco.

Rob Ramsey, 63, just received his last unemployment check. The former billing manager at a San Francisco law firm, Ramsey said he’s applied for dozens of jobs and been granted seven interviews over the last two years, but he hasn’t gotten a job offer.

But Ramsey isn’t giving up. Last Friday afternoon, he crowded into a fourth floor meeting room at JVS where he heard presentations from hiring managers from three staffing agencies.

Stephanie Simmons, branch manager for Manpower Inc.’s San Francisco office, urged the more than 50 job seekers in attendance not to give up.

“Keep calling and calling,” she said. “Things are definitely looking up. There’s an uptick, however slight.”

An economic outlook report released by Manpower predicted “the most optimistic first-quarter hiring sentiment in three years,” even as “73 percent of employers indicate they will keep staff levels unchanged."

Ramsey said he attended the event primarily to keep his spirits up.

“I have to give myself something to do,” he said, “so I can tell myself: ‘I can go to this.’”

With his unemployment benefits and retirement savings exhausted, Ramsey said he is turning to his 80-year-old parents for help.

“It’s embarrassing,” he said. “There’s an expectation that at my age you should be able to stand on your own two feet.”