Becky Murray lived the struggle.
The associate executive director of Wayne County’s Communities in Schools program took in two homeless boys for six months. During that time, she said, her family reached out to food banks and often were denied assistance because she lacked documentation for the teenagers.
“The system is hard,” Murray said. “I got into the system, and I don’t know how you survive when you’re the victim of job loss or losing your home.”
So it’s no shock to her that the families of more than a quarter of Wayne County’s children lack reliable access to the proper quantity of nutritional food. That’s just one area where Wayne County ranks among Indiana’s worst when it comes to the well-being of its children.
The Indiana Youth Institute, which is part of the national Kids Count movement, recently released its annual report on Indiana children. According to statistics reported by IYI, Wayne County ranked second with 28 percent of its children experiencing food insecurity and was fourth with 60.7 percent of children receiving free or reduced-price school lunches.
The statistics also placed Wayne County 12th for teen birth rate, 13th for children living in poverty and 13th for births to unmarried parents. The county’s median household income of $40,929 came in 86th among Indiana’s 92 counties.
“We’ve got to do better than that,” said Karen Bowen, director of Wayne/Union County CASA.
Mothers gave birth to 54 babies addicted to opiates during 2015, according to Reid Health, and the Indiana Department of Child Services substantiated 294 cases of abuse or neglect among 2,152 investigations last year.
The numbers illustrate the difficulties faced by local children every day.
“I think it’s just part of the economy issues and the drug issues,” said Murray, who will become the CIS executive director on April 1 when Vivian Ashmawi moves up to the state level.
Wayne County’s median household income rose more than $4,000 from 2000 to 2014, but the county’s Indiana rank has been 82nd in 2000, 88th in 2005, 89th in 2010 and now 86th, meaning just six counties have lower median household incomes.