"The Other Side of the Valley," the eight-part series that examined the financial struggles of four local families, offered an unblinking view of the Upper Valley's dirty little secret: Amid the region's prosperity and the continual praise it receives as a wonderful place to live and raise a family, many hard-working families find it impossible or nearly impossible to make ends meet. While some may worry about juggling their children's busy extracurricular schedules or deciding where they will take their annual summer vacation, other families must cope with more fundamental challenges: where to find shelter they can afford or how to scrape up enough money to send their children to the dentist.

It's far from obvious what can be done to address the problem, but it is clear what won't work: instructing people to help themselves by working harder. All four families profiled in the series, which concluded in last Sunday's Valley News, were supported by people who held steady jobs, and several of those breadwinners augmented their pay by working unpopular shifts or picking up side jobs.

But two full-time jobs at a fast-food restaurant weren't enough to keep the Wood sisters, their mother and one of their daughters from having to take up residence in a campground and, when it closed for the season, from living out of a motel room. A full-time job at the medical center wasn't enough to allow Kerrie Ramsey to avoid a stint in the same campground before she found a two-bedroom house to rent for herself and three sons. Ginny Macomber's waitressing job allowed her to afford a rental in Norwich, but it didn't free her from worrying where she would end up once her lease expired. And had it not been for the assistance of Habitat for Humanity, Barry Seaver might still be trying to accommodate his three children and himself in a two-bedroom apartment, which was the best he could do with his earnings.

Another frequently offered solution -- trust these people's fate to the invisible hand of the marketplace -- also offers slim hope. It's not that the law of supply and demand has been repealed; it's that it works only too well. Demand for affordable housing far exceeds the supply, and prices have shot up, leaving few places that fit into the budgets of those who live paycheck to paycheck. For several of these families, the problem wasn't handling the monthly rent but saving the considerable sum needed to meet landlords' requirement for first and last months' rent and a security deposit.

In fact, considering how strong the market signals are -- the soaring cost of new housing, the high prices and scarcity of family-sized apartments, the growing gap between wage levels and housing costs -- it's legitimate to wonder whether the plight of the working poor is really a dirty secret or a glaring truth that many of us would prefer to avert our gaze from. "The Other Side of the Valley" didn't so much tell us something we didn't know as it forced us to confront a situation that is all too tempting to avoid.

Is there nobody focusing on what seems to be the working poor's most daunting financial challenge -- shelter? Of course there is, including nonprofit housing authorities and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Every once in a while, a town will take it upon itself to sponsor a project or see what it can do to augment its inventory of affordable housing. Hanover is doing that now. But there is only so much that one town or any one organization can accomplish. The same goes for employers, which clearly have a stake in making sure that rental rates don't make it impossible to maintain a stable work force.

Until some entity comes along that gives this problem the attention it deserves and has the resources and vision to address it on a regional basis, the Upper Valley will continue to have families who, no matter how hard they work, will live in circumstances that the more comfortable among us would prefer not to think about.