In the implosion of the nation's financial system, casualties are turning up far from Wall Street.

Credit has shriveled and developers have halted projects from Carlsbad to Connecticut.

For John Coole of Escondido, the work ended a month ago and earlier this week, their resources ran out.

He and his wife, Sarah, joined the hundreds of people this last week who came to the Interfaith Community Services offices in Escondido in search of help.

John Coole is a member of a carpenter's union, but says he has been out of work for about a month and is collecting unemployment benefits. "But it doesn't pay the bills," he said. His family includes daughters Roslyn, 7, and Olivia, 11 months.

Coole used to do concrete form work on commercial buildings. Now, he says, every day he scans a union list of job sites but says he is finding that not only are few being hired, but also that more people are being laid off.

What jobs are available tend to be out of the area, he says. For those, John Coole is weighing the cost of a long commute or paying for solo housing wherever he can get work.

He has plenty of company in his search. U.S. Department of Labor figures released Friday show 35,000 construction jobs were lost in September.

The Cooles live in a two-bedroom apartment that costs $1,100 per month and say they may have to move in with Sarah's mother soon because cannot pay the rent and their bills.

"It will be crowded there," Sarah said. "John may have to stay somewhere else."

Sarah Coole says she has considered working while John stays home with their children, or going back to school to increase her work skills. "But John can make more money than I can," she said. "I stay home with the kids because day care is too expensive."

Moreover, she said. "We're cutting back everywhere we can."

The couple had "a few thousand dollars" in savings before John lost his job, but they since have liquidated all their resources, they say. "Our tax return is what got us into our apartment," Sarah said. "Then, John's truck broke down and he had to get a new one, so now we have a payment every month. We've also had about $8,000 in medical bills this year." She estimates that their expenses are about $2,200 a month.

"We don't take advantage of people," she said of her decision to visit the Interfaith center. "We just wanted some fresh fruit and vegetables for our family to eat, so we didn't have to eat out of cans all the time. We want to stay healthy."

Interfaith says it is serving 30-40 families a day, up by a third from a typical day last year.

"Interfaith was great," Sarah Coole said. "They gave us tons of information about other resources and they didn't talk down to us."

Interfaith can be reached at 760/489-6380 or online at www.interfaithservices.org.