This week the Federal Reserve reported families’ median net worth fell almost 40% between 2007 and 2010.

The Fed reports the biggest contributor to the drop in family net worth was the housing collapse. It hit middle income families the hardest.

John Becker is executive director of the Foodbank of Northeast Georgia. He says small business owners which used to donate to the Foodbank are now having to ask for help themselves.

“We’ve seen a ton of businesses actually just go bankrupt in the development sector, along with small banks that had loaned money out.”

Becker says 10 years ago they had 61 thousand people in poverty in their service area. That has grown to 89 thousand.

Tom Merkel is President of The Impact Group, a non-profit housing counseling agency in Gwinnett County. He says they are serving families from all walks of life, including those who used to have six-figure salaries.

“In 2007 the agency saw approximately 3500 to 4000. And then last year we had total requests for our services from over 7300 families.”

And Merkel says he doesn’t expect it to get better anytime soon as the number of foreclosures continues to rise.

Tags: Federal Reserve, foreclosures, family median net worth, John Becker, Foodbank of Northeast Georgia, Tom Merkel, The Impact Group