The worst economic times since the Great Depression are proving themselves in grotesque ways -- even people doing exactly the right things to survive are getting pulled under.

Five years ago, April St. Clair went through hell.

The single mom ran out of money while trying to attend school full time and feed her two kids; she moved into apartments at Hearth, a transitional housing program for low-income mothers in Ross. She used rental assistance, the food pantry, scholarships, donated school supplies and coat drives -- many of them provided by volunteers at North Hills Community Outreach, an interfaith group in Hampton that helps people in poverty -- to get by.

Over time she moved out, graduated from the former Duff's Business Institute, got a job at Duquesne University and remarried last fall. The couple talked about how this year, for the first Christmas in a long time, they wouldn't have to rely on donated gifts for the kids. Then her husband was laid off in the spring, and the couple is declaring bankruptcy.

"We were doing real well money-wise and things were great, and then he lost his job and then everything just happened again. It was really sad, because I never thought I would have to go through any of that again," Mrs. St. Clair, 34, said last week.

"I'm reapplying for food stamps, using the North Hills Community Outreach food pantry and trying to stretch every dollar I can. On my salary and his unemployment it's still very, very difficult."

People like Mrs. St. Clair depend on agencies funded by the United Way of Allegheny County to survive. The United Way kicked off its yearly fundraising campaign yesterday during halftime at the Steelers game, this weekend and will work through the spring in the hope of raising more than $30 million, with a special emphasis this year on aiding struggling families countywide.

Calls to the United Way's HelpLine have been surging, with 8,100 calls logged from January through May -- a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2008. Requests for rent assistance jumped 130 percent, utilities 60 percent, and for furniture (much of it beds for children) 108 percent. The agency estimates that up to a third of the calls are from people seeking help for the first time.

More than 1,400 new families have gone to North Hills Community Outreach for help in the last six months alone, according to Executive Director Fay Morgan.

"It hasn't slowed down yet," she said.

Numbers like those are "a true indicator of the serious problems individuals and families are having," said Robert Nelkin, the United Way's president.

While people are hurting, the agencies that serve them are struggling too: donations to human services agencies dipped 12.7 percent nationwide last year, according to a survey released in June by the Giving USA Foundation. Some 53 percent of the charities reported being under-funded in 2009, while 54 percent were seeing an increase in need.

"We work closely with agencies that help families avert eviction and foreclosure, and they are telling us at this time that they are out of money and do not have the resources to help people that we refer to them," Mr. Nelkin said.

To respond directly to the surge in rent, mortgage and utilities need, the United Way created a $50,000 fund this month, being administered by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, to issue small grants of up to $400 to families needing emergency help. Eighty percent of the calls to Catholic Charities lately have been for utility help, Executive Director Susan Rauscher said.

In July and August alone, Catholic Charities issued $25,000 in emergency grants to 115 families, all to cover utility costs. Those numbers are sure to jump in the fall and winter.

"There is significant need out there," she said.

The United Way raises its funds largely through workplace campaigns, with more than 700 companies involved in the greater Pittsburgh area. It seeks to jumpstart those efforts through the end of the calendar year so payroll deductions can be in place by January.

Its fundraising bucked national trends last year, with the United Way of Allegheny County raising $31.2 million, a nearly 1 percent increase from 2008. (Nationwide, giving to United Way was down 4 percent in 2008, Mr. Nelkin said.) The local branch is trying to match or exceed last year's number, partially by increasing the number of individuals and companies donating to the campaign.

The United Way is part of Neighbor-Aid, a foundation-based Pittsburgh collective launched last year to raise extra funds to support strapped human services agencies. The "safety net to the safety net" has raised almost $1 million for emergency relief efforts and this week officials plan to meet on another pressing problem facing charities -- the stalled state budget.

The state relies on human services agencies statewide to deliver mental health, substance abuse, preschool, day care, senior citizen and other services, but has not paid the agencies in two months. Many are set to run out of money this fall.

"The state budget fiasco is having real and immediate and dire consequences for the nonprofit community in Pittsburgh," said Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh Foundation and a Neighbor-Aid leader. "It's definitely adding insult to injury. You have the economic downturn and it's only worsened on the state level."

Neighbor-Aid plans to keep on raising funds and issuing grants to struggling agencies through the year, especially since housing and utility pressures mount as the weather turns colder.

"It's not likely to abate this winter," Mr. Oliphant said.

At the St. Clair house in West View, payments on all of the bills -- for gas, water, sewage, electricity -- are behind and new ones are piling up, especially with school starting. For ninth-grade honors geometry, Mrs. St. Clair's 14-year-old daughter was required to get a calculator that costs $100. She searched on eBay and found one for $20 instead.

"Things like that really catch up to you. You still want to have money to do fun things and you get tired of always saying to the kids, 'I don't have the money. I don't have the money,' " Mrs. St. Clair said.

There might be some good news on the horizon -- her husband, who was laid off as a delivery driver for a local company, could find out tomorrow if he has a new job.

"I'm really keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath either," she said.