Lives are in strain.Workers lose jobs. Marriages break up. A family bread winner becomes ill.

Then families have to move in with other families. Couples borrow space in a shed for meager belongings and move themselves into a barn, a tent or a car. Lucky among this group are the ones who find refuge with other family members. Such living conditions have become strained and serve only as a step from a home to living in a tent.

It happens. It happens right here in Ashe.

Most of us cringe at the thought of venturing

into Ashe County's wintry streets to go to the grocery store. Others are living it full time feeling the continuous deep ache of cold through the night, consistently covering and

hunching against the bite of Ashe County winter

winds. It's no myth or tale from another place. Our neighbors, co-workers or former co-workers face it right here, people who have stumbled here and found no practical way to leave suffer through it.

One of the faces of this plight is James Neaves,

who wrote an inspired and inspiring letter to the

Ashe County Coalition for the Homeless. His

simple suggestion is for all of us in the county to give a dollar. Hopefully most working folk could find that much to give even on an ongoing basis to help their neighbors avoid the bite of the winter wind.