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Children in Peril

Now let's hear Arne's
Duncan's words of wisdom on this
"Children left behind" topic: The numbers of
children living in poverty may rise from about
12.5 million before the recession to nearly 17
million by the end of this year. How can this
be in the richest country in history?


By Bob Herbert

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.

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.

— Bob Herbert
New York Times
2009-04-21
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/opinion/21herbert.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

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INDEX OF OUTRAGES

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