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Children's Fairyland in Oakland (Photo: Dirk Calloway / Flickr)
I’m used to reading dismal, depressing, demoralizing statistics about Oakland. But the news that 16 percent of children in Oakland live in extreme poverty has literally left me shaking and stupid. That’s 13,000 kids—one out of every six children in the 78-square-mile area that comprises the city of Oakland. This staggering page of Oakland data from the 23rd edition of the Kids Count Data Book released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation includes the information that, as of 2010, nearly half (44%) of Oakland kids lived in a family where no parent has year-round, full-time employment. I can’t imagine that statistic or any of the others have improved in the past two years.
In Oakland, 16 percent of children lived in “extreme poverty” as of 2010, with extreme poverty defined as living in a household whose income was $11,057 or below (or specifically half the federal poverty rate of $22,113 for a family of four).
California is 41st in overall child well-being and it’s likely to only get worse. A June 1, 2012 analysis of the California State Budget by Children Now says that the budget “places children squarely in harm’s way” and warns that if voters reject the governor’s attempt to generate new revenue via passage of a temporary sales and income tax measure on the November ballot, it will automatically trigger even more draconian cuts. Education will bear the brunt (90%) of these cuts, the analysis says, putting children’s well-being at “substantial additional risk.”
You know, President Obama was just in Oakland and I bet he had a lot to say about this sorry state of affairs. According to the SF Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci, here’s how he was introduced at his Fox Theater fundraiser on Monday:
President Bush left us in the worst condition since the Great Depression,” said Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, as the audience erupted into a chorus of boos at the mention of the GOP president’s name. “But things are turning around. This president’s policies have seen 28 consecutive months of private sector job growth….we are in a make or break moment for the American worker.
Hmmmm. Seems like Barbara Lee No Longer Speaks For Me. Well, anyway, Obama must have offered some concrete solutions to the impoverished children watching as he whizzed by in his limo on the way to his three fundraisers. Or maybe not. At least not anything I can find. But hey, no worries, his staff probably brought it to his attention immediately that children are fucking starving in his very own country and he’s probably working on fixing it as we speak, right? Right?
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On our way home from the Obama fundraiser protest, we drove through fields of food for three hours. Food as far as the eye can see. Food for every hungry child. Yet they have no access to it. We live in a country where it is apparently acceptable for children to go hungry, to go without healthcare and education and basic necessities. I don’t understand. I’ve been thinking about what I personally can do about it beyond volunteering at the food bank or donating food to a child or two. That doesn’t fix the problem. We tried to fix the problem at Oscar Grant Plaza; for nearly a month, there was so much food donated that nobody in downtown went hungry. But the pigs shot tear gas and rubber bullets at us for feeding people so we had to stop.
Here’s a take on government inaction on poverty, drought: The financiers are gaming our food supply:
Here.
Thank you for paying attention, HFC.
This is just my opinion, but I think that the Obama/Political Class has the strategy of dismissing our condemnation of their starving our kids by claiming that we are saying “sensational claims” about them.*
* But they only show that side of themselves when they are with other elites, such as at fundraisers. If you can bring your self to actually listen to selected quotes from their speeches, they ‘bicycle’, praising their present company and dismissing their critics, kissing upwards and kicking downwards.
My wife was a residential counselor at a group home in Oakland for what California calls SED (Severely Emotionally Disturbed) kids.
Her stories of poverty, abuse, neglect, and despair were heartbreaking.
The children of Oakland, and children all over this
greatnation of ours, need our help. The top levels of this government need to address these problems. Problems that won’t be solved by expanding SNAP. We need full employment, a living wage, the elimination of food ‘deserts’ like Detroit and parts of Oakland. We need better education.Thank you for bearing witness HFC. Thank you for the diary.
Sounds like it’s going to get worse, too, HFC, with more cuts to Food stamps, more job pay freezes, etc.
Remember though: those hungry kids and their parents aren’t starving, or going to be hungry, or malnourished because all they can afford are cheap starches (sometimes sugars) that fill their bellies so they don’t cry, they are now:
FOOD INSECURE
As in: not quite sure if or when their next meal will come from, but it sounds like less of a problem, doesn’t it?
ONE thing that helps kids learn is: breakfast. Even our little school got it, and began serving breakfast to hungry children. Program got cut of course, partially because the Superintendent got the board to invest in…interest rate swaps. Ooopsie.
Would it help at all to write letters to the papers asking those who can afford it to donate to food banks? The O administration gives money to churches, but I dunno how far their outreaches go. So many cities have said for so long now that their shelves are pretty much empty. In the richest nation on the planet.
And of course helping a kid or two would help, but it would be a whole family in the end; the costs would add up quickly.
So many wrongs to set right, and so hard to accomplish long term solutions. Sorry for your pain; it should be all our pain, but so much suffering is hidden from view.
The callousness of people toward this seemingly basic issue baffles & enrages me too, HFC. How many redirected CEO salaries would it take to feed all these children? I hope we find out someday.
Hi Carol, thanks for this.
You saw fields of food, while children are going hungry. There are people who want to work who can’t find jobs. There are people who want stuff but can’t afford it. There are empty homes and homeless people. IOW, we have ‘supply’ and we have ‘demand’ so in classic econ terms, we should have a ‘market’. But we don’t have money. Contracts with Goldman Sachs are unbreakable, but the social contract? Meh.
This shit has got to stop.
“But the pigs shot tear gas and rubber bullets at us for feeding people so we had to stop.”
We can’t stop.
Thanks to all of you for bearing witness with me. And sorry my diaries are always such litanies of horror. This stuff eats at me and I have to write about it. At least I am not alone here; I can see that others have the same impulse.
Tom Thumb, I read your link. Nearly a billion hungry people? And we’re turning corn (GMO no doubt) into biofuel. And continuing to ignore global warming. In Cali, the governor just proposed building tunnels to redirect Sacramento River water under the delta. So all our food sources are under siege, with the oligarchy and climate change working hand in hand. Cripes.
Kris and Wendy, I do feel like this has become an insoluble problem for those who traditionally try to help – food banks, individuals, churches, etc. Schools here have summer lunch programs and as I mentioned on another thread, the downtown farmers market was offering $10 worth of food for $1 of food stamps (some sort of grant, I believe). But much of the problem is still invisible and, as Tom Thumb said, we’re accused of exaggerating or sensationalizing it. Hungry kids in the greatest country on earth? Ah hell no, how could that be?
Kit, I am baffled and enraged too. And I felt like a total asshole going out last night and being able to buy whatever I wanted to eat. I’ve always felt like it was sheer luck (combined with white privilege) that I happen to have a job and money in my pocket. I’ve been unemployed and broke and grew up pretty poor but I always felt lucky and I never understood why it was OK for my basic needs to be met when others are not. Whenever I give a panhandler money or donate something, it usually makes me feel worse instead of better. Mr. HFC always yells at me about that, but it just puts me in touch with the inadequacy of my response. Here’s a dollar or even five; I get to go back home to a roof and a meal. It’s just wrong.
Hotflash, you nailed it. And you’re right, we can’t stop. We’re all there is.
Doing my Occupy ‘sparklehands’ of complete consensus, here. We have to keep on trying to make this better. Here in Austin a group is continuing to fight for the rights of the Woodridge Apartment residents, whose balconies collapsed dangerously months ago. The owner told everyone he’d make the repairs, but now the property manager told everyone they ‘just don’t have the money.’ What BS. Where’d all that tenant rent money go?
No hope, hungry, can’t pay your rent? You might just be the 99%.
Thank you, hotflashcarol.
Were this a sane civil society then you would have said ALL that needs to be said.
As it is NOT a sane civil society and, it is under unrelenting attack …
Recommended to the human conscience of everyone at FDL.
How may we possibly, humanly tolerate … or vote for “more of the same”?
DW
Sorry, got no fucking words.
HFC–
Thank you for your diary. It’s as bad as you say, and maybe even getting worse.
Here’s a startling video, entitled “U.S. Poverty About To Hit Highest Level In 40 Years,” Daily Ticker, Yahoo Finance:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/u-poverty-hit-highest-level-40-years-165914572.html
Highly recommended.
Blue
DW, I agree – this society is not sane. Insanity prevails but we aren’t supposed to notice or comment about that.
Tambershall, thanks for reading. There aren’t really any words sufficient to respond to this.
Blue Onyx, that video was a great reminder of how corporations have greated a new class of the working poor who are fully employed but don’t make anywhere near a living wage. And even though they spend everything they earn, it’s not enough to keep the economy going. Capitalism is eating itself at quite a brisk pace these days.