The Quiet Disaster for Children

In an op-ed piece in yesterdays NY Times Bob Herbert has highlighted the growing humanitarian crisis in the US, in particular the growing homelessness which is most sharply seen in child poverty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/opinion/21herbert.html?th&emc=th

“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… 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.”
Herbert expects the problem to worsen with state and local governments staggering beneath the weight of growing budget deficits. The problem can be seen from coast to coast with State’s cutting social service programs. The recession has led to heavy falls in state tax revenues. This coupled with government cut-backs to fund bailouts of financial service companies is beginning to be felt nationwide. 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. Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York describes the situation as frightening: “it’s actually quite frightening… 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.”
Describing what is occurring as “a quiet disaster” Redliner highlighted that: “Kids can’t wait for the economic recovery to have their immediate needs cared for”

Comment

It is often said that the youth of today are tomorrows future. Any society that cannot protect that most precious of things will surely fail in the longer term. In the cold hard light of day the US administration, whether under Bush or Obama is prioritising bankers over bread. It is scandalous that hundreds of billions can be rustled up to prop up failed banks yet critical social programmes and the very livelihood of the nations future takes a back seat.

That the supposed leading economy of the world is increasingly unwilling to provide the basics of food, clothing and shelter to its own, despite consuming 25% of the worlds resources (with only 5% of its population) shows just out of line capitalism has taken its adherents. The rich get richer and who cares for the rest. Or “Everyman for himself and the devil take the hindmost” (as Herbert Hoover called in 1928).

“and do not kill your children for fear of poverty - [for] it is We who shall provide sustenance for you as well as for them” [Quran: 6:151]

“And Allah has given you mates of your own kind and has given you, through your mates, children and children's children, and has provided for you sustenance out of the good things of life. Will men, then, [continue to] believe in things false and vain, and thus blaspheme against God's blessings?” [Quran 16:72]