TULSA--A year ago, the life Demetria Overstreet and her family knew slowly began to fade.Her husband, Lenzie Overstreet, was diagnosed with kidney failure and had to leave his job to begin treatment.
With its main money-maker out of work, mounting medical bills and three children to care for, the family saw its financial problems beginning to build.
At one point, their home’s gas and electricity were turned off. Car payments lagged. And at times, the family survived on eating hotdogs and chips.
“It was depressing, especially when my son would come home and said ‘Momma, nothing comes on,” Mrs. Overstreet said, referring to the electricity.
Her children are not alone.
More than one in five kids in Oklahoma lives in poverty, according to 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Oklahoma ranks 14th among all states.
The data, released in November, is broken down by school district and estimates the number of children in each district as well as those who fall below the poverty line.
The poverty line for a family of four is about $21,000, an Oklahoma Department of Health report states.
After Lenzie Overstreet’s health problems, the family’s children--Delanie Holman, 12, Demetrius Holman, 10, and Breann Overstreet, 3,--joined thousands in Tulsa who live in homes that struggle financially.
In the Tulsa Public School District alone, 12,200 kids live in poverty, according to census data. That’s 23.7 percent of the districts 5-to 17-year-olds.
The percentage of kids below the poverty line in the Oklahoma City school district is about 30 percent.
C. J. Devin, supervisor of the Tulsa County Emergency Shelter, said she wasn’t surprised by Tulsa’s higher than-average child poverty numbers. She witnesses it at the shelter every day.
“There are actually more homeless children than there are adults,” Mrs. Devin said. “That should frighten everyone.”
Last year marked the first time the shelter had to refer families elsewhere because it had no room, Mrs. Devin said.
In normal years, the shelter fills up in the summer but runs below capacity in the fall and winter. Not so in 2009.
“It seems like the needs are much more intense,” Mrs. Devin said.
But the number of kids below the poverty level isn’t the only story, said Desiree Doherty, executive director of the Parent Child Center.
Mrs. Doherty said 40 percent of Tulsa County children under 5 live within 185 percent of the poverty level, which is below self-sufficiency.
In addition, 78 percent of TPS students qualify for free or reduced lunches, the district reported.
To qualify for free lunch, a family of four must earn less than $28,6665. To qualify for reduced lunch, it must earn less than $40,793.
“There are more who struggle, and we see it in every district,” said Whitney Downie, director of children’s mental health and early childhood programs for Family & Children Services.
In southeast Oklahoma, the percentage of children living in poverty reaches a third or even half in some districts, a Tulsa World analysis found.
Mrs. Downie said it’s often those areas that lack the funds to adequately care for the poor.
Mrs. Overstreet said she was grateful for the resources Tulsa offers. With help of friends, family, church, the United Way and Family & Children Services, among others, Mrs. Overstreet said she can see better days ahead.
Her husband recently returned to work. He’s waiting for a kidney transplant, but Mrs. Overstreet remains optimistic. “We’re too strong of a family not to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.
