While scores of children across Orange County open gifts in heated homes this holiday season, thousands of kids go without basic needs every day – like the guarantee of a roof over their heads. 

At least 15% of children throughout seven OC cities live in poverty, according to a new report from the OC Social Services Agency. 

It’s estimated that around 10.8% of Orange County’s children still live in poverty, or around 90,000 children based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Although child poverty has dropped countywide from 18% in 2012 to about 11% in 2021, the report notes. 

An Tran, Director of Orange County’s Social Services Agency, said in an email statement this month that reports like these are important for targeting people’s needs and bringing service providers together.

“We know when children have full bellies, they do better in school. We know access to medical providers creates a healthier community. We know parents having steady employment leads to a family’s self-sufficiency. But we also know we at SSA cannot tackle these challenges alone,” Tran said.

OC’s Hungry Children

While overall poverty has dropped, the number of students eligible for free lunches has climbed.

The spike comes amid high inflation and food costs and after the end to increased COVID-19 food stamps and other benefits for families that state and local food bank leaders warned would cause what they consider a food cliff.

[Read: The 2023 Food Cliff: Orange County Continues Confronting High Food Demand]

Close to 53% of students at OC public schools – roughly over 200,000 kids – were eligible for a free or reduced lunch this year, increasing from 47% last year according to the report. 

Claudia Keller, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of OC, said in a phone interview earlier this month that those free lunches are critical for poor kids.

“Hunger can raise its head on the weekends and we know that summer can be a challenge and that’s why we lean into child hunger programs after school and in the summer to make sure that kids are getting as many healthy meal options as possible,” she said.

Keller, who previously worked in Los Angeles schools, said hungry kids struggle in school.

“Kids that are not eating a balanced diet, a predominantly nutritious diet, tend to have discipline problems, tend to have attention problems, fall asleep in class,” she said. “Not having a strong backbone for nutrition can seriously be a challenge for students at any level.”

About 27% of kids under 18-years-old in Santa Ana get food stamps – the most of any OC city, according to the report.

It’s not just Orange County’s kids grappling with the food cliff – children across the state are hungry.

May Lynn Tan, the director of research for the California Association of Food Banks, said at a webinar earlier this month that parents are taking on second and third jobs to put food on the table.

“We heard from a lot of households with children that they’re having a really difficult time keeping up with food costs and this was especially true when their kids were home for vacation or when school was closed,” she said.

Absenteeism

Many of those same cities where parents struggle to feed their kids are the same ones where children have a hard time finding a permanent home and attending school. 

According to the report, school districts like Magnolia, Santa Ana Unified, Savanna and Placentia Yorba-Linda Unified all have a sizable number of students who struggle with unreliable or no housing – nearly 30% of students in the Magnolia district are marked as insecure housing. 

Those same districts struggle with chronic absentees, meaning students who are absent more than 10% of the school days.

On a countywide basis, one in five students is considered chronically absent, with the report noting that’s nearly three times as many chronically absent students compared to 2017.  

In Magnolia and Savanna, just under 30% of students are classified as chronically absent. 

In Santa Ana, nearly one third of all students were labeled as chronically absent, 

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.

Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.