Family homeless shelter sees increase early in the season
Miranda Garvin holds her son Natheniel James, nine-months-old, while looking for clean baby clothing at a donation closet at a Multnomah County homeless shelter. The county's latest poverty report shows single-parent families are disproportionately affected by poverty.
(Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian)
UPDATE: This post has been updated to reflect the correction appended at end and to include additional details about the self-sufficiency standard used in the report.
One in three Multnomah County residents earn less money than needed to meet their basic needs, according to a new Multnomah County report that uses broader criteria for self-sufficiency than the federal poverty line.
The report, written by Kristina Smock Consulting for the county Department of County Human Services, was released last week. The most telling finding: “Poverty in Multnomah County is severe and it is growing.”
The report, "Poverty in Multnomah County," goes on to outline the demographics of Multnomah County's poorest residents.
It says one-third of county residents fall below the Self-Sufficiency Standard, which is defined as the amount needed to meet basic needs -- including taxes -- without either public subsidies or private assistance, such as relatives who provide child care or churches that distribute food.
The Self-Sufficiency Standard, developed by the Center for Women's Welfare, is much broader than the federal definition of poverty. The federal poverty line for a family of four is $23,850. By that measure, 17 percent of the county's population lives in poverty.
The Self-Sufficiency line, meanwhile, is $65,522 for a family of four in Multnomah County. The report's authors say the self-sufficiency figure is a more accurate measure of "whether households are struggling to make ends meet," noting that many families in this broader group do not qualify for safety net programs.
“To put this into perspective, the population living in poverty or near poverty in our community would, if counted as a whole, be the second largest city in Oregon,” Linda Ridings, vice chair of the Commission on Children, Families & Community, told the county board of commissioners during a briefing last week to discuss the report.
Since 1990, the proportion of county residents living in poverty has ballooned. While Multnomah County’s population grew 26 percent from 1990 to 2010, the population in poverty grew by 65 percent.
The report’s authors attributed the growth to a decline in family wage jobs and a disinvestment in “safety net” programs like food stamps and rent assistance.
As has been typical historically, minorities, children and single mothers are disproportionately affected in the latest figures. So are East County residents.
Single-parent families were particularly vulnerable. Forty-two percent of single-parent families fell below the federal poverty level, while only 9 percent of two-parent households lived in poverty.
More than a quarter of people of color in Multnomah County fell below the federal poverty level.
Unsurprisingly to anyone who has read The Oregonian's coverage of East Portland, per-capita poverty was highest in that area, at 23 percent. Conversely, poverty was least prevalent in West Portland and Central East Portland, at 13 percent.
Areas with higher poverty also had poorer public transit access to family wage jobs, fewer experienced teachers, higher rates of diabetes and higher death rates from cancer and heart disease.
--Kelly House
CORRECTION: The Self-Sufficiency Standards in Multnomah County for 2011 was $65,522. An earlier version of this post contained an incorrect figure.