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Shift in poverty to suburbs creating social service challenges

Suburban poverty rates are outpacing Dayton’s

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By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 9:48 PM Friday, January 22, 2010

Like many ministers and social workers in the region, Nick Osborn has seen first-hand the economic suffering brought on by job loss and under-employment.

“One of the things we’ve noticed is we’ve seen an increase with the need for food and those types of requests,” said the associate pastor for First Baptist Church of Kettering.

“We’re also seeing among our senior adults, oftentimes they’re making the decision between food and medication. So they’re really struggling.”

In addition, he said, a number of families and individuals in his suburban congregation have become technically homeless after losing the house to foreclosure and are forced to live with family members.

“I’m seeing an increase of that going on in multiple folks,” Osborn said.

Poverty comes in many faces, and two studies released this week shed light on the increase in poverty across the country, in Ohio and in the Dayton region.

The study by the Brookings Institution found that poverty is increasing in the suburbs this decade at five times the rate that it is growing in the urban core.

Dayton is one of the leaders of that trend, the study found. The percent of Daytonians living below the poverty level was 29.2 percent in 2008, up 6.2 percent during the decade. That was the fifth-highest increase among the 95 large metropolitan statistical areas studied.

The Dayton suburbs, meanwhile, had a poverty rate of 9.5 percent, up 2.5 percent since 2000. That was the 10th highest growth rate among large metro areas.

The study also projects another poverty rate increase of 2.8 percent in the Dayton region in 2009.

The study used U.S. Census data to compare metropolitan statistical areas, meaning anyplace outside of Dayton in the four-county region that also includes Greene, Miami and Preble counties was considered a suburb.

In 2008, there were 1.5 million more people nationwide living below the poverty line in the suburbs than in the cities, said Elizabeth Kneebone of the Brookings Institution. (The poverty line in 2008 was $21,834 annual income for a family of four.) In 2000, about 400,000 more poor lived in the cities than in suburbs.

“The rate at which this shift has happened over this decade is remarkable,” said Kneebone, co-author of the study.

Because most social service agencies are located in urban cores, she said, this shift is creating problems.

“As the poor population increasingly suburbanizes and is spread throughout the region,” she said, “this really calls for policy and service providers to think at the regional scale.”

Another study, released Friday by the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, also documented the state’s rise in poverty, which reached 13.7 percent of all Ohioans in 2008. That report urged the Ohio Legislature to enact policies to bolster the economy, lifelong education, affordable housing, public transportation and the social safety net.

The report surveyed comments collected from more than 1,800 people last February by the Ohio Anti-Poverty Task Force and made recommendations to state policy makers.

“They gave us some really common-sense things that they want to see,” said Phil Cole, executive director of the association, about the citizen comments. “One was the need for jobs that pay well.”

Deb Downing, assistant director of Montgomery County Job and Family Services, said the influx of new, first-time applicants for assistance is stretching the safety net thin.

Because of state and county budget crunches, the department has been unable to add workers. As a result, she said, the average case worker in the county now has 560 cases, about twice what would be ideal.

But Downing said she knows many others who are eligible for and need help aren’t getting it.

Churches like Osborn’s help fill the need.

The church on Swigart Road at the Kettering-Sugarcreek Twp. border offers both a food pantry and a discount food program called Angel Food Ministries.

The food pantry is stocked with non-perishable items by congregation members, Osborn said.

“We’ll have families come through weekly,” he said. “We allow them to come in and load up for whatever they would need to feed their family.”

The church is also one of more than two dozen in the region that offers the Angel Food program.

For $30, he said, participants can get enough food to feed a family of four for a week. The program accepts food stamp vouchers.

The church typically takes about 75 orders a month, he said, and almost all participants are from suburban families.

Jacqueline Bunke, who helps coordinate the same program at the Sulphur Grove United Methodist Church in Huber Heights, said the church joined the program because they saw “such a need.”

More than 300 families have participated in the first year of the program, she said. Many lately, are using food stamps to order.

“The whole point is to reach out to the community,” Bunke said.

For more information on Angel Food Ministries or to find a participating church in your area, visit www.angelfoodministries.com.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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