ELKHART -- Having to scrap with nine other people for bathroom time is probably the hardest thing.

"We all want to take showers and the water gets cold," said Sabrina Chavez-Garcia.

It could be worse, though, and despite the cramped quarters -- 10 people sharing a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house -- she and the rest of her extended family manage. They have few other options, and Andres Garcia, 59, Sabrina's father-in-law and the patriarch of the bunch, figures the arrangement brings them closer together.

"It's like a test," he said. "We're uniting more as a family."

With the economy down and unemployment and foreclosures up, more families here are doubling and tripling up to make ends meet. Such crowding can spark familial strife, say experts here who work with the homeless. But as Garcia and the rest of his family show, it can be the best alternative in a bad situation.

"It's rough, but there's also a positive," said Ross Swihart, executive director of the Faith Mission homeless shelter in Elkhart. Leaving your home and moving in with extended family, he said, you have a "safety net" to help you deal with the issues that prompted the situation, whether job loss or home foreclosure.

Beyond that, more people sharing a household can mean a larger pool from which to tap resources to get along. Alone, Garcia, son Juan Garcia and son-in-law Alfredo Aguirre no longer have the income to maintain individual households. Together with their respective families under one roof, though, they're scraping by.

Still, such an arrangement isn't for everybody.

Tim Thorne, head of Goshen Interfaith Hospitality Network, a homeless shelter, said the families his group helps have typically tried living with extended family but not been able to cut it. Clashes over who's supposed to keep the kitchen clean or alcohol abuse might complicate matters. Maybe landlords don't let tenants house homeless family members.

Nonetheless, he's seeing more of it, underscored by what he says is a growing number of rental units being vacated. "What that tells me is there's a lot of folks that have to be doubling, tripling and even quadrupling up," he said.

'ABLE TO SHARE'

Gabriela Aguirre -- Alfredo Aguirre's wife and Andres Garcia's daughter -- never figured her family would face foreclosure. She and her husband, immigrants from Mexico, bought their tidy Goshen home back in 2005 and it was just the place for them and their three small kids, their dream come true.

But then the economy went south, and her husband, now working part-time at a restaurant, lost his job at a trailer manufacturer. Unable to keep up with the $882 a month mortgage payments, they left the place, moving in last August with her father. The Goshen home now faces imminent foreclosure.

"The worst thing we thought is we might have to sell it, but not lose it," she said.

Likewise, her brother, Juan Garcia, lost his job with a supplier to the recreational vehicle industry, forcing him, wife Sabrina and their 3-year-old son from their rented apartment. He too got a part-time job at a restaurant, but it's not enough and they moved in with Dad and Mom last December.

Now, Gabriela Aguirre and her family sleep in the small basement while Juan Garcia and his family and Andres Garcia and wife Maria Ofelia Sanchez share bedrooms on the main floor. Every nook seems to be occupied, while the garage, which once housed Andres Garcia's cars, is packed with the belongings of his children's families.

Despite it all, Andres Garcia, who moved to Elkhart from Mexico in 1993, doesn't know if the family's pooled resources will be enough. A return to Mexico is a possibility.

"The fear is there," said the elder Garcia, also recently laid off from an RV manufacturer. "We don't know if we're going to manage from month to month."

And then there's the constant battle for the bathroom.

But as Gabriela Aguirre sees it, there's comfort knowing she's not alone in her struggles. Many Elkhart County families are dealing with the same issues. Beyond that, her kids are getting to know the rest of their family better, and she is too.

"We're lucky. We're a family and we're together," said Andres Garcia. "That's what's helping us, that we're able to share."