[regional_school] Fw: Children in Peril
- From: Dan Drmacich <dandrmacich@xxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:50:47 -0700 (PDT)
Op-Ed Columnist
Children in Peril
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By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 20, 2009
With so much attention focused on the banking system and arguments over
bailouts, the plight of America’s children in this severe economic downturn is
getting short shrift.
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Bob Herbert
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The Recession’s Impact
Faces, numbers and stories from behind the downturn.
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Official statistics are not yet readily available, but there is little doubt
that poverty and family homelessness are rising, that the quality of public
education in many communities is deteriorating and that legions of children are
losing access to health care as their parents join the vastly expanding ranks
of the unemployed.
This is a toxic mix for children, a demoralizing convergence of factors that
have long been known to impede the ability of young people to flourish.
“It’s actually quite frightening,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the
Children’s Health Fund in New York. “We’re seeing very unsettling reports of
increased numbers of children in poverty. Those numbers may rise from about
12.5 million before the recession to nearly 17 million by the end of this year.”
Dr. Redlener is a pediatrician who also is a professor at Columbia University’s
Mailman School of Public Health. He co-founded the Children’s Health Fund with
the singer Paul Simon back in 1987 in response to a homeless crisis in New York
City that saw families with small children wallowing tragically in squalid
welfare hotels.
Dr. Redlener and Mr. Simon raised enough money to purchase a medically equipped
van that traveled the city to bring free health care to homeless kids.
What is happening now, nationally, is overwhelming compared with the problems
in New York City in the mid-1980s. “We are seeing the emergence of what amounts
to a ‘recession generation,’ ” said Dr. Redlener. “This includes the children
who were already living in poverty, but also millions more whose families had a
reasonable chance of making it. Two years ago, they saw themselves as working
class and middle class, but now many are unemployed or underemployed, and one
of the results is that we’re seeing growing numbers of children depending on
emergency rooms for health care or going without care.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted that changes in food stamp
enrollment closely track changes in poverty. Since the start of the recession,
the number of people receiving food stamps has increased by 4.6 million, nearly
17 percent. According to the center, that’s an indication of a substantial
increase in poverty over the same period. And that’s bad news for children.
Similarly grim evidence is mounting with regard to homelessness. Surges in the
number of families living in shelters are being reported by officials in
communities across the country.
“This spike in homelessness,” the center said, “is worsening what was already a
large and persistent problem. Even before the current recession, an estimated
1.6 million people, including 340,000 children, were homeless and living in
emergency shelters or transitional housing over the course of a year. Many more
adults and children were living on the street, in shelters for victims of
domestic violence, or temporarily in the homes of friends and relations.”
With unemployment expected to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, and
with state and local governments staggering beneath the weight of budget
deficits, there is no reason to believe that these problems — and their
profound negative impact on children — will do anything but worsen.
States from coast to coast are cutting social service programs. Arizona’s child
protection agency, for example, has cut back on its investigations of abuse and
neglect reports. Similar cutbacks in socially beneficial and even life-saving
programs for children are in the works in many states.
Dr. Redlener described what is occurring as “a quiet disaster.”
The number of state-of-the-art mobile medical units operated by the Children’s
Health Fund has grown from one in 1987 to 37. In an effort to bring health care
to some of the children most in need right now — while at the same time drawing
attention to the plight of children in general in these tough economic times —
Dr. Redlener is planning to deploy the distinctive blue vans to some of the
communities hardest hit by the recession.
The first stop will be Detroit this coming weekend.
“We’re going to take them to various parts of the country where there have been
significant cutbacks in services,” he said, “and for a weekend we’ll provide
free health and dental care to children whose parents cannot afford to pay for
care. We’ll also refer every child that we see to an ongoing source of care in
their community, if we can find one.”
The goal, he said, in addition to helping as many children as possible, is to
spark additional help for children from all quarters, government and private.
“Kids can’t wait for the economic recovery to have their immediate needs cared
for,” he said.
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