A Paycheck Away; Search for Missing Mt. Hood Climbers Continues
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well dressed people in good jobs are one paycheck away from homelessness.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Are you one of them? Look around your neighborhood, your workplace, your world. People living just a paycheck away.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Homelessness does not disappear. It does not disappear. It is always on the back of your mind. I can't do that anymore.</s>LIN: A job layoff, an injury, circumstances spiral out of control. Even forcing a war veteran to sleep in his car.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm disgusted and it's not because I'm a veteran or a soldier or somebody who served. That means nothing. We choose to go. No one forced us to go. I'm just saying you should be treated like a human being for God's sake. That's all I want.</s>LIN: It doesn't have to happen. We've brought in the experts to get your finances flowing. All in the pursuit of happiness.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In your darkest days, when it is all on the line, the only person you can count on is you.</s>LIN: His life story unfolds on the big screen. But you'll meet the real Chris Gardner in a rare primetime interview tonight. "A Paycheck Away" coming up right here in the CNN NEWSROOM. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM, your connection to the world, the Web and what is happening right now. I'm Carol Lin. You've been busy today so let's get you plugged in. Starting with the headlines. Air Force rescue crews will fly all night long scouring Oregon's Mt. Hood for three climbers missing more than a week. A quick update from our Chris Lawrence, he is standing by the rescue command center. Chris?</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, the helicopters, the Chinook and the two Black Hawks have been grounded because of the darkness but that C-130, that military plane will continue to fly all night over the next 24 hours. In fact, its infrared capabilities overnight and into the early morning, might be the best opportunity because -- to find those hikers because other objects that normally give off a heat signature will have cooled down by then. Today, earlier today, some of the ground crews got as high as 10,600 feet, just a few hundred feet from the summit before the weather pushed them down. They face some pretty fierce conditions out there. Swirling winds, deep snow, soft snow that they had to wear skis and snowshoes to get through. But again they are continuing and will continue throughout the weekend. The family was out here today to congratulate them and encourage them, to tell them that they are in their prayers and they do appreciate the risk that they are taking up on that mountain to find those three missing hikers. Carol?</s>LIN: Chris, and we understand that the mood is still pretty positive that these guys could be alive.</s>LAWRENCE: That's right. Everybody is saying that there is still a chance. That these are experienced, professional hikers, they know what to do up thee and they are treating this as a rescue mission.</s>LIN: All right. Chris Lawrence standing by the scene close to Mount Hood. Thank you. Also, 20,000 troops, maybe more to Iraq. That is the number military and budget advisers are looking at. They're drafting a proposal for President Bush to ponder. And Houston, we have got a slight problem. Shuttle astronauts spent a few hours outside the International Space Station. They pushed and pulled and shook the partially retracted solar array trying to free up a stuck wire. It's still stuck. They will try again Monday.. The mission will very likely be extended a day. And congratulations to you. Yes, you. You are "Time Magazine's" person of the year. What? Well, the magazine decided that the online explosion of surfer generated content like MySpace, YouTube and millions of blogs made you the world's most influential person. You will even see yourself on the magazine's mirrored cover. Those are some of the big stories today but right now, we are going to bring you a special report. Sixty-five percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck during this season, many are choosing between holiday presents or putting food on the table. How can so many hard working people -- yes, I said hard working people -- end up on the streets? There are 3.5 million homeless people according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Tonight, we bring you their stories from New York to Los Angeles. The nation's capital to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Plus we will tell you ways to keep yourself out of the red. All in this special hour of the CNN NEWSROOM. Now let's start with a family who did everything right to live the American dream yet went from homeowner to homeless. CNN's Deborah Feyerick looks at one woman's struggle to get back on her feet.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a cold December afternoon, Julia Smith and her 12-year-old son Michael walk past the three bedroom home that used to be theirs.</s>JULIA SMITH, LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: I miss it. I do. I miss the people. I miss the neighborhood. I still have friends that live here. And I do miss it. You know, I'd be a fool not to.</s>FEYERICK: Smith and her son live in Jeffersonville, Indiana on the banks of Ohio River across from Louisville, Kentucky. The locals call it the crossroads of America.</s>SMITH: It's not the big city, but it's not country bumpkin either. It's just down-home folks.</s>FEYERICK: There are close to 29,000 people living in Jeffersonville. More than four percent of them are homeless. Even some with jobs.</s>SMITH: Mom does not have it well.</s>FEYERICK: Smith, a high school graduate lost everything three years ago following an on the job welding accident that left her badly burned. She ultimately lost her job and her home.</s>SMITH: Every time I dropped that hood and started welding I just would shake from head to toe and I would break out into sweats. I ended up having a nervous breakdown. And that's why I was -- basically that's why I'm no longer employed there.</s>FEYERICK: Smith's situation is not uncommon. According to Barb Anderson who has devoted her life to fighting homelessness.</s>BARB ANDERSON, DIR. HAVEN HOUSE SERVICE: In our community we have a lot of working poor people. Fully employed, $6.50 an hour is their average wage. So they rob Peter to pay Paul until they can't afford Peter or Paul anymore and they end up in our shelter. We will have two or three families sometimes in one room.</s>FEYERICK: Anderson runs Haven House, a shelter, she says, that's way over capacity. A common problem in rural areas.</s>ANDERSON: We're the only shelter in a two hour radius between Louisville and Indianapolis that accepts people for longer than three or four days. So we get people from all over the southern part of the state.</s>FEYERICK: After finding a new job as a security guard at a local hospital, Smith was able to move into a Haven House apartment which costs $450 a month. She pays 30 percent of her salary and works hard doing odd jobs in order to lower rent and build for the future.</s>SMITH: It can happen to anybody. I am a good example of that. I had a home. A nice home. I mean, it wasn't a big mansion on the hill, but it was nice. A place I could come home and hang my hat and say hey, I'm home. And things happen, it just didn't work out for me. Where did he move the capital?</s>FEYERICK: Smith says everything she does is for one reason. The love of her son.</s>SMITH: He is the most important thing in my life. He is the reason that I do anything. He's my everything. He's -- he's why I get up in the morning.</s>FEYERICK: Her wish for the holidays?</s>SMITH: I will have a home. It may not be next year. It will be soon. I will have my own home. You can mark your calendar on that. I just don't know what date yet. But I will. I will have my own home again. Something that I can leave to my son.</s>FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN New York.</s>LIN: Now we want to hear from you. Based on our paycheck to paycheck theme, tonight why do you think this happens to Americans? Give us a call at 1-800-807-2620. We are going to air some of your responses later this hour. But first ...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just should never take for granted what you have. Because you never know when one day you don't have it anymore.</s>LIN: She knows firsthand. Now she's trying to make sure that her daughter keeps a positive outlook on life. And this mother found herself living on skid row and now she's taking forward steps with no chance of sliding back.</s>WILL SMITH, ACTOR: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something.</s>LIN: Will Smith captures the struggle of Chris Gardner who slept in subway restrooms fighting to raise his son and survive as a homeless man. Where is the real life Chris Gardner now? He will talk to me later in this NEWSROOM special report "A Paycheck Away."