Northwest Arkansas — The number of Northwest Arkansas children living in poverty is growing faster than the area’s overall population, a report issued by the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families says.

Laura Kellams, director for the organization’s Northwest Arkansas office, said impoverished children in Benton and Washington counties increased by 11,146, or 146 percent, between 1990 and 2008.

While quickly growing, the numbers in Benton and Washington counties remain much smaller than in the rest of Arkansas. The number of children living in poverty in 2008 was 17 percent of the overall population of 107,472 children in Benton and Washington counties. Statewide, 25 percent of children live in poverty, compared to a national average of 18 percent.

“Research shows that children who grow up in poverty are at an increased risk of a wide range of problems, from higher dropout rates to poor health,” Kellams said. “Those outcomes impact their own well-being and also, in the long run, our state’s economic success.”

According to the nonprofit group’s report, Arkansas children living in poverty cost the state $6.2 billion annually.

“In 1990, our economy was booming, but even then our child poverty rate was growing faster than our population,” Kellams said. “We think of this area as being economically prosperous, but one reason we have an office here is to remind people that there are increasing numbers of children living in poverty.”

Rich Huddleston, the group’s executive director, attributed Northwest Arkansas’ poverty level to low-paying jobs.

“Northwest Arkansas still isn’t considered a high tech economy like the Silicon Valley,” he said. “The area is dependent on a lot of service industries, like poultry. With the area’s economic structure, you have a lot of low-paying jobs, which means you’ll have a fair number of children living in poverty.”

The report, “Child Poverty in Arkansas 2010: A Deepening Problem,” is the most recent addition to a three-decade research project examining the wellbeing of Arkansas children. The goal is to educate people about the extent and causes of child poverty, as well as who it impacts and finding ways to reduce it.

Brooke Benoit, vice president of marketing for the United Way of Northwest Arkansas, said the organization recently experienced the effects of poverty in the region first-hand.

“We just finished our investment process and based on what we’re seeing, there seems to be a greater need in general,” she said. “A lot of it, we’ve been relating to the economy. When we went through the investment process, we saw an increase in requests from individuals who were trying to become financially stable.”

Kathy Grisham, executive director for the Northwest Arkansas Community Center in Springdale, said the organization has been forced to stretch its resources to meet the needs of under-privileged families.

“We added another pediatric provider last November and we’re completely full,” she said.

Grisham said the need to expand health care coverage for impoverished children is evident.

“The demand for services has increased, but you have to look at the whole picture,” she said. “There are 93,000 without health insurance in this area. We saw 19,000 last year and the numbers are going up. I’m sure the most recent statistics are over 100,000.”

Despite the area’s poverty rate, Huddleston said Arkansas has made progress through initiatives such as ARKids First and quality pre-kindergarten expansion. Poverty is a problem that spans generations, he said, and the challenges associated with it can’t be resolved overnight.

“I think we have a long way to go with health care, in terms of making sure that all low-income children have coverage and aregetting checkups to prevent potential health care problems from growing bigger,” he said. “We have way too many low-income kids who can’t access early childhood programs.”

In addition to improved health care access, Huddleston said, quality education, along with expanded after-school and summer programs, could improve the state’s child poverty rate.

“One of the best things you can do to improve education is to make sure they’re healthy,” he said.

Children with ARKids First often have a difficult time finding health care providers participating in the program, Grisham said, but the Community Center is accepting new children.

Huddleston said Arkansas needs to pursue a comprehensive approach to make children the focus, rather than special interest groups. Over the next year, he said, the Arkansas Legislative Taskforce on Reducing Poverty and Promoting Economic Opportunity will be charged with developing policy recommendations.

“We hope children will be the focus as they develop benchmarks for the next five, 10 or 15 years,” he said.

The organization’s full report can be found at aradvocates.org.

News, Pages 12 on 06/16/2010