Cairi Passler is in a bad place, literally.

The Marion mother of three is making three to four trips a day to Kalispell to shuttle her and her husband, Joshua Van Curan, to their jobs — she works at a discount store; he’s employed at a convenience store.

Passler’s driving with a spare tire someone gave her after her own spare tire wore out. There’s no money for new tires, let alone the rear main seal her husband’s truck needs. And the $300 to $400 gasoline bill each month is killing them.

One day recently, Passler brought a sign to town and staged a one-woman protest in front of the Community Action Partnership building in downtown Kalispell. It was a last resort, she said, a way to visibly illustrate her frustration.

Her message: “My family cannot get help cuz we work and are not drunks, druggies, homeless or being evicted.”

Passler and her husband are trying desperately to get enough money to move into an apartment in a low-income housing complex off Meridian Road in Kalispell. Initially they were told their income was barely over the threshold to qualify for assistance, but a recalculation allowed them to get deposit money for an apartment.

What irked Passler is that many assistance programs seem to favor people who are unemployed, being evicted or are already homeless.

Passler said it’s not Community Action Partnership’s fault that it can’t help her family more; it’s the plight of the working poor as a whole.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008, 19 million people lived in working-poor families. Nearly 9 percent of all American families living below 100 percent of the federal poverty level have at least one family member working.

In Passler’s case, her family lives at 49.5 percent of benchmark poverty level, and they’re sinking.

“We’re not just treading water, we’re drowning,” she said. “We just need a one-time hand up.”

She figures her family needs to somehow raise $1,000 to cover the first and last months’ rent and pay moving expenses to haul their belongings from Marion to Kalispell. Since they don’t have the money to get her husband’s truck fixed, it means more gas for the one car that’s still running.

With two teenage boys and a younger daughter, there’s no fat to cut in the budget. Last month the family began getting about $200 worth of food stamps. It helps but doesn’t begin to feed a family of five for an entire month.

Doug Rauthe, executive director of Community Action Partnership, said the agency is seeing more and more families in situations similar to Passler’s.

“What we’ve seen in the last 18 months is a great increase in citizens who need help,” Rauthe said. “They’re on the edge, they’re beyond the edge.”

Effects of the national recession are lingering longer than most people would like in the Flathead Valley, and to make matters worse, Rauthe said, some of the federal stimulus money offered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for homeless prevention and other programs dried up when the federal fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

“Some assistance simply went away,” he said. “There’s a small portion left for homeless prevention, but there are tighter restrictions. We’ll continue to help until the resources are gone.”

PASSLER and her family moved in January to the Flathead from Florida, where Van Curan’s work as a welder had all but dried up. They were headed to Washington to look for welding jobs when they stopped off to visit Passler’s parents in Marion.

They decided to stay in Marion, rented a cabin and within two weeks both of them got jobs. Not high-paying jobs, but they were both working full time and thought they’d be able to make it.

The commuting might have worked if one vehicle hadn’t broken down, and like so many working-poor families, they’re not poor enough to qualify for some assistance programs and not well off enough to survive on their own.

Passler, 35, admits that mistakes have been made along the way. They were on welfare at times in the past; their credit rating is bad.

“When we were younger we made some stupid decisions,” she admitted.

But this time, Passler and Van Curan, who have been together since they were 15, wanted to prove to themselves that they could make it all on their own.

“When I was on welfare, they told me to be self-sufficient and get a job. Now I’ve got a job and I still can’t make it,” she said, breaking down in tears. “I’ve pawned or sold everything I can and this is not fair to my kids.”

Their children didn’t get all of the school supplies they needed this fall, including a $50 calculator that was out of the question for one of her sons. They heat with wood, but their chain saw was one of the items they pawned.

During one desperate plea for gas money at the Community Action office, a stranger stepped up and handed Passler a $50 bill. She filled her tank and bought toilet paper with the spare change.

“When I thanked him, he told me, ‘Thank God, not me,’” she recalled.

RAUTHE said he understands the pride in being able to “stand on your own two feet.

“In this lady’s case, if both of their cars had stayed running they could’ve made it. People want to work; we know that,” he said.

It’s difficult to tell people they don’t qualify for assistance, Rauthe added.

“Sometimes we stew and fret and think, ‘Is there some way to help, some other referral we could give them,’” he said.

Passler knows she’s not the only one who’s struggling in the aftermath of the recession. But that doesn’t make her plight any easier.

“We’re really trying and to get kicked when you’re already down is hard,” she said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com