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In Tampa Bay, this is what child poverty looks like

 
Kimberly Shephard of Clearwater has two children at home, Adrienne, 14, left, and Ty, 11, right, and she often cares for her grandson Denzel Pulliam, 2. Despite a full-time job, she still struggles to cover her monthly bills and has to seek outside support.
Kimberly Shephard of Clearwater has two children at home, Adrienne, 14, left, and Ty, 11, right, and she often cares for her grandson Denzel Pulliam, 2. Despite a full-time job, she still struggles to cover her monthly bills and has to seek outside support.
Published July 26, 2015

Nearly 1 million Florida children were living in poverty in 2013.

Ashley Corbett is a single mother raising one of those kids, Jayden, 3. Soon she will have two. The 29-year-old is seven months pregnant with her second child.

When things get tight, she reaches out to social services. They helped her find two part-time jobs, one at McDonald's, the other at a day care center.

There, she got 50 percent off. It still wasn't enough.

The day care worker could not afford day care.

"I would take him to my mom's because it was so expensive to take him in with me," Corbett said. "Trying to make ends meet, it's a struggle."

The story of her children is the story of Florida children mired in poverty, growing up with the odds already stacked against them.

The latest study of how hard life is for the state's children and families comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which last week released the most recent statistics available.

But that's just data. Tampa Bay's parents, social workers and educators fill in the rest of the picture.

They talk about children who go hungry when they can't eat at school, who don't visit the doctor for routine checkups, who are less likely to attend preschool or even graduate high school.

"These children, their physical needs aren't being met, nutritional, emotional and otherwise," said Erika Remsberg, a social worker who works with homeless students in Pasco County. "We're dealing with parents who are really just trying to survive."

• • •

In Florida, one in four kids lived in poverty in 2013. That year, the poverty line for a family of four was $23,550.

The 2013 data was the last year the Casey study could examine. Florida was ranked 37th in the country in overall "child well-being,'' which measured indicators such as education, economics and health. The state's ranking reflects high instances of children falling behind in school and living in single-parent families without secure employment.

The report also showed that nearly 250,000 more Florida children were living in poverty in 2013 than in 2008. That year, amid the Great Recession, 721,000 kids were impoverished in Florida.

Those numbers do not surprise social service providers working in Tampa Bay.

"We knew that the recovery wasn't for everyone," said Kelley Parris, executive director of the Children's Board of Hillsborough County. "There is a segment of the population that's not recovering nearly as quickly or as prosperously as others."

Though the report said that the child poverty rate "has remained stubbornly high," it projected that the 2014 numbers would "show some improvement." That was due to a decline in the unemployment rate from 7.1 in June 2013 to 5.5 in June 2015.

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Many providers said they have yet to see that change. Some have seen conditions worsen.

• The Children's Board of Hills-borough County saw a 58 percent increase in people who used its services from 2013 to 2014. The organization helps connect families with educational, health and child care services.

• From 2013 to now, the Pasco County School District saw the number of families with homeless students rise 19 percent, from 1,285 to 1,582. These families lack permanent housing. They often move three to seven times a year, jumping between family and friends' houses, weekly hotels and their cars.

• The numbers for the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County remain fairly consistent, serving 38,014 children in 2011 and 37,105 in 2014. The board oversees and funds a variety of groups that help needy children in areas ranging from school readiness to prevention of child abuse.

The Pinellas board's executive director, Marcie Biddleman, said it will take a few more years for providers to see a tangible improvement in the lives of those they serve as the country eases out of the recession.

"There's this shadow that's still lingering," Biddleman said. "People don't recovery that quickly. What they're thinking about is not the education of the child, but how do they feed them tonight.

"At that point, you're not into recovery, you're into sustaining your family for the day."

• • •

School cafeterias may present the clearest picture of child poverty. More than 50 percent of students in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties receive free or reduced-price meals. That's more than 221,000 kids across the bay area. The greatest share are in Hillsborough, where 61 percent of the county's students — 127,778 children — qualify for help.

Those free lunches are life savers for parents like Flavio Irizarry, 57, who lives with his wife and six children in the Pinellas area of Highpoint at the northeast corner of U.S. 19 and Ulmerton Road. When the food stamps run out for the month, when the pantry is bare, Irizarry knows his kids will still eat at school.

For children in poverty, time spent at school is often the most stable part of their day. There, they have two hot meals. They see the same teachers and support staff. Even the lunch lady is a familiar face. They know they will be safe and fed and cared for.

At home, it's different. Meals aren't guaranteed. Neither is having a bed for the night.

It's worse in the summer, when school is out. Regular meals can be hard to come by. Temperatures rise as Irizarry tries not to run the air conditioner. Laundry is limited to once a month. The water heater must stay off as much as possible. Energy bills are expensive.

Irizarry lives in a constant state of anxiety compounded by frequent visits to the Veterans Health Administration. Somehow he must pay the family bills and provide for his children on a monthly $1,100 disability check. Paying for rent and food each month is hard enough. Throw in a higher auto insurance premium following a crash, or a teenager's infected tooth, and life becomes precarious for the family of eight.

"Right now, I'm worried about everything," Irizarry said. "I'd be happy just to catch up so I don't feel like we're always behind."

• • •

Education is often touted as the surest way out of poverty.

But the odds are stacked against these children from birth, when their mothers don't have access to sufficient health care and can't afford preschool or accredited child care.

"The opportunities are just not there for these children," said Lindsay Carson, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County. "From an early-learning perspective, those disparities show up as early as 18 months old."

Children in poverty tend to receive lower-quality child care, Carson said, stunting their intellectual growth. By the time they enter school, they're already behind. From there the disparities keep building. The risks of drug and alcohol addiction, teen pregnancy and run-ins with law enforcement rise.

In 2013, the report said that 61 percent of fourth-graders in Florida were not proficient in reading and 69 percent of eighth-graders were behind in math.

"If they're not prepared, they're more likely to fail and drop out," Carson said, "and then, of course, they're more likely to continue the cycle."

Fewer parents are unemployed now than in 2013, but many of the jobs that are available — part-time positions in low-wage industries such as agriculture or tourism — don't pay enough to provide for families or pay the high cost of child care.

"There are lots more jobs out there now, and that's great," Carson said, "but they're not all paying a living wage.

"The cost of child care is so high that, for many of them, it's the decision between whether they keep working and devote 30 or 40 percent of their paycheck to it, or quit their job and go on unemployment."

Kimberly Shephard of Clearwater works full-time in a dental office. Technically, the single mother of two lives above the statistical poverty line. But she also spent last week cobbling together the $309 she needed to keep her electricity from being shut off.

Three agencies had chipped in to help Shephard pay the bill. But she was still $30 short. So she swallowed her pride and asked a friend for help. The electricity stayed on, at least for another month.

Her kids, 11 and 14, don't understand why their mom eats less than they do (so they can eat more) or why they can't play sports like other kids do (because the leagues all have hefty fees to join.)

"They know when I'm struggling," said Shephard, 40. "They don't understand why mom can't give them the things they need."

Times staff writer Waveney Ann Moore contributed to this report. Contact Caitlin Johnston at cjohnston@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3401. Follow @cljohnst.