Cincinnati’s Child Poverty Crisis — Opinions
Lucy May of WCPO Cincinnati, Sarah Stankorb of Cincinnati Magazine, and Kathleen Brinkman of The Cincinnati Enquirer present the most pertinent arguments and solutions to Cincinnati’s child poverty crisis.
May focuses primarily on the impact of childhood poverty on the affected population’s health. She asserts that the most effective methods in which to tackle the crisis at hand is to expand the reaches of inner-city Foodbanks, and to expand the capacity of homeless shelters. Given that poor health profoundly impacts the way in which the youth of Cincinnati perform in early education and beyond, I find deep validity in May’s perspective: if young Cincinnatians are not able to succeed in school, it becomes increasingly difficult to perform well enough to secure well-paying employment that can help break the cycle of familial poverty. May refers to the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati’s non-stop efforts to distribute nutritious and affordable meals to those in the city who need them, but she emphasizes that the need continues to grow without cessation despite economic growth. The Foodbank also offers employment to recipients of the meals to help them out of poverty. May also exemplifies Bethany House Services — a homeless shelter in Cincinnati — to assert that expanding the capacity of such shelters will provide safe and decent-quality housing for those affected by child poverty, so that they can grow in environments that won’t put them at risk of poor physical health that would affect academic performance.
Stankorb adjacently focuses on the impact of improving the education facilities and abysmal infant mortality statistics that Cincinnati unfortunately claims, particularly downtown. As May cemented, education — and the ability to satisfactorily complete education to some degree — highly impacts the prospects of children living in poverty overcoming their familial economic situation. Therefore, it is understandable that the quality of the available education for sufferers of child poverty should naturally be up to par in order to alleviate Cincinnati’s crisis. As such, Stankorb emphasizes the importance of funding initiatives like Preschool Promise, whose mission is to create a more equitable start for low-income students and eventually a more competitive workforce in the region. Stankorb perpendicularly asserts, however, that dealing with Cincinnati’s terrible rate of infant and maternal mortality, particularly for minority low-income women, is equally as important. Given that Hamilton County — which includes the city of Cincinnati and many of its suburbs — has the second highest infant mortality rate in the nation, there obviously is room for drastic reform in Cincinnati’s maternal medical care. She names Cradle Cincinnati, whose mission is to lower the rate of infant mortality in the city, and who’s ongoing success is notable. I would argue that Stankorb’s stance on this improvement could be made more profound; I strongly believe that reform is needed in the clearly present racial biases in Cincinnati’s medical institutions. If primarily women of colour — those whose families are most strongly affected by child poverty — die during childbirth, or their infants die in the process, there is most definitely an institutional bias that needs to be addressed in order to overall ameliorate this phenomenon’s effect on child poverty.
Brinkman’s argument connects to Stankorb’s secondary point: she argues that increased accessibility of contraceptives will reduce Cincinnati’s child poverty crisis. With research by the CDC proving that teen pregnancies significantly contribute to female high school dropout rates, tackling unwanted pregnancies would naturally reduce the rates of girls ceasing their education. As May and Stankorb stated, education leads to employment that hopefully breaks the poverty cycle in families. Teens in impoverished areas who don’t have access to abortion clinics, or who choose to follow through with pregnancies, would likely struggle with having an additional mouth to feed, unfortunately perpetuated a status of poverty. Even teens who do not come from poverty may end up impoverished because of unwanted pregnancies if they are not already financial self-sufficient. Brinkman therefore emphasizes the importance of services supplied by Planned Parenthood, which continues to supply low-income areas with birth control units, long-acting reversible contraceptives, access to on-site abortion clinics, and education about gynecological health and pregnancy. I fully agree with Brinkman’s approach as a key way to tackle the issue at hand, but I do believe that a nuanced balance between all three arguments present viable methods to solve the crisis quickly.
Sources:
Contraceptives reduce child poverty. (2016, Apr 25). Cincinnati Enquirer Retrieved from http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.libproxy1.usc.edu/newspapers/contraceptives-reduce-child-poverty/docview/1783916240/se-2?accountid=14749
