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BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE
Most of us never worry about how many digits fit on our calculators.
But when the federal government started talking about a bailout, many Americans learned that their calculators couldn't fit more than 10 digits--they couldn't squeeze $700 billion onto the portable adding machines.
A number that large can turn off the brains of the average math-challenged American.
So just how much is $700 billion? Area nonprofit organizations get by on a lot less, and they offered some clues on what they could do with that much money.
Amy Flowers Umble: 540/735-1973
Email: aumble@freelancestar.com
| HOUSING
The Greater Fredericksburg Habitat for Humanity builds about two houses each year. Those houses cost $135,000 "from the ground up," said director Bruce Seger. The $700 billion approved for the bailout could build more than 5 million houses, which is more than all the housing units in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia combined, according to a report for 2007 by the U.S. Census Bureau. |
| UTILITY BILLS
Area nonprofits and churches often offer money to people struggling to pay their electric or heating bills. All are gearing up for a predicted rough winter. Salvation Army social workers and staff at the Rappahannock Area Agency on Aging worry there won't be enough money to keep up with the rising heating costs this year. The average American household spent about $992 on heating last winter, the federal Energy Information Agency reported. With $700 billion, every housing unit in the United States could be heated for the next 5 years. |
| SHELTERS
The Thurman Brisben Center spends $35 per night to shelter a homeless person from the Fredericksburg area. In the latest annual count, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 754,000 people in America are homeless on any given night. With $700 billion, homeless shelters could give those people more than 26,000 nights of care. That would hold them for 71 years. |
| FOOD FOR THE ELDERLY
The Fredericksburg Area Food Bank provides boxes of food for the elderly through its Food For Life program. Each box costs the food bank $7.68 to assemble and provides at least five meals. Assuming three boxes would feed a senior for a week, $700 billion could provide food for every American aged 65 and older for 154 years. |
| HEALTH CARE
The Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic can treat its average patient for $867 per year, said director Karen Dulaney. "We could treat a lot of people for $700 billion." In fact, the Fredericksburg-area's free clinic could offer a year of medical services for 807,381,776 people, more than the 2007 populations of Canada, Mexico and the United States--and almost as many people as those living in North and South America combined. |
