Half Of Illinois Town Unemployed
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Pembroke, IL. – If you think the recession has hit hard where you live, consider the little Northern Illinois town where almost half the working age adults are out of work. It’s called Pembroke. CBS2′s Mike Parker reports.
Imagine a community so deep in the hole, the government has fired the police force and closed two of three elementary schools. It’s happened in Pembroke, a little town of some 3,000 in eastern Kankakee County near the Indiana border.
It’s a town where these days, many folks don’t rebuild after a fire. The charred remains just sit there.
Mayor Sam Payton puts it this way: “I’d say we’re the forgotten community.”
Payton says the unemployment rate is 46 percent and the median income is just half the statewide figure. Payton says his goal right now is to create jobs in a place where businesses don’t seem to want to come, and the young people mostly want to leave.
“When they get out of high school, they’re leaving because there’s nowhere for them to work,” Payton said.
The only major businesses in the town seem to be a couple of gas stations and a snack shop. There was another gas station and convenience store, but owner Isaac Lewis says he closed it down because business was so bad.
“Used to be it was hard to make ends meet, but now we don’t consider trying to make them meet,” Lewis said. “We just get close enough to wave at each other, ’cause they’re not going to get close to meeting.”
At one time, Pembroke was home to a Nestle Corporation factory and more than 100 jobs. But the company moved out several years ago leaving the town in the lurch.
And there was a state plan to build a new women’s prison in the town, but it was abandoned in the economic downturn.
At Pembroke’s Church of the Cross, the pastor says the economic slowdown is causing a different kind of crisis.
“From a spiritual aspect, you’re looking at a person who’s praying and praying and praying, but yet it doesn’t look like their prayers are being answered,” said Rev. Jon Dyson.
There are signs of hope however. The town is applying for millions of dollars in federal grants to build some 60 low-income homes.
And Pembroke hopes that soon, a local police department can be re-formed. Currently, the County Sheriff provides patrols.
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