Thousands of Missouri children are not getting enough to eat. Thousands live in fear of eviction. Many have no health insurance. And all across the state a mental health emergency is growing.

This is the heavy toll of Covid-19 on Missouri families, says a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and it demands an urgent local and national response.

“America’s children are in crisis,” said Annie E. Casey Foundation President and CEO Lisa Hamilton about the foundation’s report: Kids, Families and COVID-19.

“All across the country, families with children are struggling to overcome an unprecedented convergence of emergencies,” she said. “We need immediate and decisive action from policymakers that prioritizes equitable solutions to help families survive this catastrophe.”

The 50-state report shows that throughout the nation children and families are experiencing widespread disruption in the economic storm set off by the global health crisis.

Download the full report

The study identified four pain points afflicting Missouri households in a survey of families’ food security, their ability to make rent or mortgage payments, health insurance status and mental health concerns.

• One in seven U.S. and Missouri families with children (14%) said that in the most recent week, there was sometimes or always not enough to eat in their household.

• Nearly one in five U.S. households with kids (18%) and one in six Missouri households with kids said they had only slight confidence or no confidence at all that they would be able to make their next rent or mortgage payment on time.

• One in eight families with children (12%) in both Missouri and the U.S. overall lack health insurance, a figure which has been worsening over the past four years. More than a third of people with children in the household (34%) in the U.S. reported that they had delayed getting medical care in the previous month.

• A fifth of U.S. respondents with children in their households (21%) reported that they had felt down, depressed or hopeless in the previous week, indicating a widespread need for access to mental health care. In Missouri this 22% of respondents reported these mental health care needs.

In Kansas City, school districts and social service agencies have mobilized with the resources they have to support households during the pandemic.

LINC’s Caring Communities site coordinators have been contacting families in need across the neighborhoods of LINC’s partner school districts, making phone calls and often knocking on doors, reaching out to provide help to families who have been lost or disconnected.

Many heroic individuals and community organizations are playing essential roles and they need help, said William Dent, Executive Director of the Missouri Family and Community Trust (FACT), home to the Missouri KIDS COUNT coalition that works to improve the lives of Missouri's children.

“Missouri’s family and child-serving providers have stepped up to work together to protect and provide for our kids,” Dent said. “In our communities, parents, schools, churches, health care and mental health clinicians, public health workers, businesses, and other social service providers have collaborated in unprecedented ways to ameliorate the health and financial impacts of this pandemic.

Federal, state and local policy makers must take action to help children and families, said Leslie Boissiere, Vice President of External Affairs at the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which earlier this year provided $1.8 trillion in support of families, businesses and local governments, needs to be revived with a new round of aid for communities in pain, she said.

The nation’s leaders need to “mount a response . . . that enables America’s children and families to weather this crisis and yields more equitable outcomes,” Boissiere said.

Ten days before Christmas, Congress remained in a struggle to find a bipartisan agreement on a second CARES Act relief package. A $908 billion proposal was on the table as lawmakers had until the end of the week to reach an agreement that could be tied to longer-term spending legislation.

Hope also arrived the same week as the first vaccines were distributed into communities nationwide.

But without economic aid, families are still facing months of pain going into the new year as unemployment benefits, a moratorium on evictions and other relief measures are scheduled to expire.

As many as 40% of Missouri households with children are reporting that they are struggling to pay for typical household expenses, said Tracy Greever-Rice, the Missouri KIDS COUNT program director, and that need is only likely to grow through the winter.

“As Missourians,” she said, “we will continue to support our children, families, and communities.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer