Delaware's child poverty rate remains high

Close to 50,000 kids in Delaware live in poverty, a number higher than 20 years ago.

Many wonder when their next meal will be. School may be the only place where they can find clean clothes. The holiday season might be nonexistent.

"A lot of them are just hungry for some nurturing," said Anthony Powell, executive director of Kingswood Community Center, an organization that serves close to 6,000 kids in inner city Wilmington.

Delaware's child poverty statistic was flagged in a recent Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count study as one that needs attention. The study, unveiled Wednesday, compiles 20 years worth of data on factors that impact kids health and wellness.

Over two decades, the teen birth rate dropped nearly in half from 33.5 births per 1,000 teens to 16.2. High school dropout and youth incarceration rates also improved, but the number of kids in poverty jumped from 35,000 to 48,938 from 2012 to 2014. It is a number double that of adults in poverty.

The numbers are on par with national trends. Studies found that currently one in five children in the United States live in poverty, making its kids the second most impoverished in the world after Romania.

Health experts say that rise is tied to the 2008 recession when many Delawareans saw their jobs cut back or lost. Many now work two, three or four jobs just to make sure the lights stay on, says Leslie Newman, chief executive of Children and Families First, a nonprofit social services agency in Delaware.

"If you look at our economy and how it has evolved. We have had a change in the number of jobs available," she said "We are catching up now in that we have a higher graduation rate than we used to, but we have many young parents."

To provide for her 2-year-old daughter Nani, 23-year-old Alison Mendez works a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift with UHaul and cleans the Delaware Department of Labor's office building at night.

It's a tight schedule, but she cherishes her time with Nani when she can – in the morning, at night and when she picks her up at Kingswood around 3:30 p.m. each day.

Mendez considers herself lucky; Nani has health insurance, is healthy despite some pesky allergies and loves to read and learn new words for colors. But she acknowledges that she has to make tough decisions sometimes especially surrounding work and childcare.

"I will buy diapers and wipes before I buy gas," Mendez said.

Poverty affects all aspects of a child's life, said Kelli Thompson, president of the Kids Count Board and director of operations and support for Nemours Health and Prevention Services, from physical to social to mental health.

A child who is chronically hungry probably needs help staying focused in school. A child who has been touched inappropriately is more likely to enter the criminal justice system, she explained. The factors are connected.

"You can't really look at one item as a standalone," Thompson said.

The child's physical health can also suffer if parents or guardians are having trouble paying the bills, finding jobs or securing health insurance, she said. Leaving the house without brushing teeth or missed doctor's appointments can become the norm.

"Anytime that there is stress on a a family unit or a parent, that stress is going to have a negative impact on that child," she said.

Powell recently changed Kingswood's hours so the center can stay open until 9 p.m. to keep kids engaged and off the streets. With those hours, between 75 to 100 kids visit the center a day, he said.

Some days Powell is reluctant to see them leave, fearing the home situation they could be going to.

"It's hard to have them go home," he said.

Of the 18,000 child protection referrals the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families received last year, about 60 to 65 percent involved neglect, said Dr. Vicky Kelly, director of the department's social services division.

"You are talking about a lot of kids and a lot of families," she said.

It's hard to tease out which families are withholding resources versus families that are clearly struggling, she said.

Westside Family Healthcare, a community health center with sites in Kent and New Castle counties, cared for more than 8,200 pediatric patients in 2014. Families can pay on an affordable sliding fee scale and any insurance is accepted.

Asthma, obesity and obesity-related conditions such as high cholesterol and liver damage are common, says Dr. Megan Werner, Westside's associate medical director. It's possible to even see high cholesterol in a six year old, Werner said.

Less access to fresh, healthy produce and lack of safe space and adult supervision to exercise all contribute to obesity issues, while conditions such as asthma are worsened by poor housing and secondhand cigarette smoke.

"Lots of our patients live in housing conditions that are not ideal with dust, and with older houses it just collects more of the peeling paint. It contributes to an environment that makes breathing tougher," Werner said.

Asthma medication was expensive enough for Cherieka Briggs, 29, of Wilmington. But on top of that, she lost her job because she kept having to shuffle her now 11-year-old daughter to the hospital for treatment.

Then Briggs had to have back surgery and the cost took a toll – the family lost their house.

"It's been a tough road," she said as she packed groceries at the food pantry at St. Patrick's Center on 14th Street in Wilmington.

Now, things are starting to look up for Briggs. Tuesday she was about to move into a new home and celebrated starting a new job as a security officer with Securitas USA in the city.

For the time being, the family still relies on St. Patrick's for meals, but she's not embarrassed.

"Sometimes you need a little help," Briggs said.

In March St. Patrick's served 1,219 households, 733 children and 1,637 adults, said Joe Hickey, the center's executive director.

"We are faced with a neighborhood that is faced with extreme poverty," Hickey said. "When you ask me if it's getting better or worse I don't really know. We are kind of putting out a fire that exists and the people that come here are struggling to get through the day."

Sometimes, people who seek the center out for food, clothing and shelter don't have a support system.

In Delaware, a family of four at the federal poverty threshold has annual income of $24,008. For a one-parent, two-child family the income drops to $19,073.

According to Kids Count, 40.9 percent of Delaware's kids in poverty have one parent. Janice Barlow, director of Kids Count in Delaware through the University of Delaware, says that relationship between poverty and single parenthood is a double-edged sword.

"Being a single parent increases the likelihood that a family is going to be in poverty. Poverty increases the chance that babies are being born to unmarried mothers," Barlow said.

"That complexity is not necessarily inherently negative," she added, but "it can create instability and conflict especially in the low income families."

There needs to be more job training resources, Barlow said, as well as changes to the earned income tax credit, a subsidy for low and moderate income working people to supplement their earnings. In Delaware the credit is non-refundable, which limits the amount people get to take home as a refund when they file for the credit through the Internal Revenue Services.

It would be the best strategy Barlow said if that credit was made refundable and Delaware raised the minimum wage.

"Those two things paired together have showed the best results," she said.

Jen Rini can be reached at (302) 324-2386 or jrini@delawareonline.com. Follow @JenRini on Twitter.