The future of children growing up in poverty is bleak in many ways. Such children are at risk for poor health, low educational achievement, teen pregnancy and remaining impoverished as adults.
Although their families may spend a greater portion of their income on housing, they are less likely than children from more affluent families to have safe, adequate housing, and they may move often. They also are likely to live in poorer neighborhoods and to be acquainted with fewer people who are economically stable.
In short, they face significant disadvantages, and those disadvantages can be tracked, although not neatly, along racial and ethnic lines.
According to the 2017 Kids Count report, 11.5 percent of La Plata County’s children live in poverty, better than the statewide average of 14.8 percent. Kids Count is a publication of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, which tracks state and county-level data on child wellbeing.
In Montezuma County, 28.7 percent of children live in poverty; in Dolores County, the rate is 22.4 percent. That affects all of Southwest Colorado.
Children are not responsible for their economic circumstances, and they have little ability to rise above those limitations until they reach young adulthood themselves. Enabling them to eat free lunches, while certainly important, doesn’t necessarily help launch them into a brighter future. For that to happen, families and communities need to work together.
The puzzle has many pieces. Parents have to do much of the heavy lifting, but they depend on living-wage jobs, affordable housing, parenting education, high-quality affordable child care and early-childhood programs. They also need support and encouragement for education, access to healthcare, fair law enforcement and judicial systems, opportunities for new experiences, scholarships for further education and much more. Strong schools are a front-line resource.
La Plata County’s rate of childhood poverty is relatively low compared to most of the state, but it’s still higher than it should be. These children and their situations must not be allowed to become invisible to the rest of the population. The perpetuation of intergenerational poverty is harmful for the entire community.
Childhood poverty harms the entire community, and the community benefits from helping to solve the problem.
