More need, less availability for public services for children

McALLEN — Almost half of Hidalgo County children are living in poverty, and nearly one in four do not have health insurance, despite local efforts to help meet those needs, according to a think tank’s recent report.

The progressive Center for Public Policy Priorities based in Austin released its Kids Count 2009-2010 report last week, which assesses how children are faring in Texas.

According to the report, Texas has made some gains in improving the poverty rate among children and in enrolling more children in Medicaid, although Texas remains among the nation’s 10 worst states for child poverty. But the center cautions that the data it collected reflect conditions before the state began feeling the effects of the recession in late 2008, said Frances Deviney, the director of Kids Count.

The center anticipates that future reports will show more children living in poverty and lacking basic needs because their parents or caregivers have lost their jobs, Deviney said.

Meeting those needs will prove to be more difficult for the state, she said.

“We’ve greatly increased the demand; we’ve greatly increased the need,” Deviney said. “And we’re really struggling with the ability to meet that need. It is a growing recipe for disaster.”

Hidalgo County is a microcosm of what is going on in the state, she said.

“What we see, particularly in the (Rio Grande) Valley, (is that) the kinds of jobs available to the largest part of the labor force are low-paying, seasonal,” Deviney said.

In tough economic times, these types of jobs are the first ones to be cut, she said.

With more families facing unemployment and loss of access to insurance, identifying children to enroll in public insurance has become even more important, said Luisa Saenz, director of the nonprofit Children’s Defense Fund’s Rio Grande Valley office.

The organization has been working with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, area school districts and other groups on initiatives, including identifying and enrolling eligible children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and is currently helping the center to get Valley families to participate in the 2010 census.

Despite their efforts, thousands of children remain without access to health care. No matter how many enrollment applications for those programs were submitted, the organization and its partners did not have a mechanism in place to track them to find out how many the state approved and processed, Saenz said.

“The setback has been with the state,” she said. “The poorest of the poor are being held back by the state.”

Saenz anticipates her organization, the center and their partners will have a better way of tracking who actually is approved for coverage, thanks to federal funding.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded the nonprofit leg of the Texas Association of School Administrators a $1 million grant last fall to support school-based programs to identify and enroll eligible students in CHIP and Medicaid. Of the eight school districts throughout the state targeted for this, four are in Hidalgo County: Pharr-San Juan-Alamo, McAllen, Hidalgo and Valley View.

Even with extra help, Saenz is concerned the area will not receive as much money and resources as it needs to help these children. That’s because the Valley has traditionally been underrepresented in U.S. census counts, which help determine how more than $400 billion a year in federal funding is spent on infrastructure and government services.

“This is why the census is so critical to us,” Saenz said.

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Jennifer L. Berghom covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.