Report: 40% of children in Michigan live in poverty

from WZZM

Michigan's poor economy is being blamed for a rise child safety issues including healthcare and child abuse. The findings are from the most recent Kids Count in Michigan report which states among other issues, that two of every five children in Michigan live in poverty.

In the city of Grand Rapids, there are 45,000 kids under the age of five; nearly 13% of them are living in families with a federal poverty income of just over $20,000 a year. Despite that fact, Candace Crowling with Kent County's Child and Family Resource Council says there are some positive statistics coming out of this latest statewide report, "I would be happy if any time we took action we asked ourselves is this good for children? And I think kids count gives us an opportunity to take that pause and do that."

The number of children who have health insurance has improved, more children are being tested for lead poisoning and fewer teenagers are having babies. That's the good news. The bad news surrounds a statewide increase in child abuse and neglect cases that Crowling says includes Kent County, "We're not sure whether that is attributed to better reporting or we're seeing an increase. In either case it's any child that is getting abused or neglect is too many."

In 1998 Kent County reported 852 cases that number has continued to climb to 1,970 reported cases in 2005. That's an increase of nearly 114%. What's even more troubling is that it's predicted only 10% of all abuse and neglect are reported, which Crowling says means there could be even more cases, "There are children in this community who are in harms way and to me it's a call to action to say what can we do as a community to help these children be safe and they parents succeed in good parenting."

Healthy Start is one program already in place. It's designed to help first time parents build a foundation for parenthood as seen in this video provided to us by the Child and Family Resource Council. The hope is programs like this will help prevent cases of abuse. “We're encouraged by the efforts that are going down especially in the early childhood and we think over time these numbers that we see increasing can go down.” says Crowling.

Here re the poverty and abuse numbers in Ottawa and Muskegon counties.

Muskegon County lived at the federal poverty level compared to only 6% in Ottawa County. In 2004 those numbers stayed about the about the same in Ottawa but went down in Muskegon to 17.5%.

And when it comes to child abuse and neglect, in 1997 Ottawa County reported 249 cases and Muskegon County reported 328. In 2005 the numbers followed the statewide trend and increased. Ottawa County reported 342 case and Muskegon reported 668.