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Poverty on the rise in Butler, Warren counties

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By Staff report Updated 7:16 AM Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The number of people living in poverty rose dramatically over the last nine years in Butler and Warren counties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In Butler County, there were more than 42,000 residents living in poverty in 2008, a 12.4 increase since 1999, according to a survey.

In Warren, the number of residents living in poverty rose from 6,425 in 1999 to 15,771 in 2008, the survey said.

The poverty increases came as no surprise to Maurice Maxwell, executive director of Family Service of Middletown. He said his office, which serves residents between 150 and 300 percent of the poverty rate, has received a huge spike in the number of people seeking assistance with food and housing.

As of the end of August, total intakes were up 21 percent and the total number of households seeking assistance was up 35 percent. Maxwell said more are coming for assistance for the first time and he believes the increase “is just an indication of where we are in terms of the downturn.”

He added: “We didn’t need the Census data to tell us that, but to parallel the data that we’re seeing, in terms of the downturn and people who are in poverty that (is) evident through the increase in the number of people we are seeing.”

Until the past year, poverty levels in Warren County, according to services administered by the Human Services Department, appeared to drop off a bit in the past few years, according to Director Doris Bishop. The last year, however, has told a different tale. Bishop said requests for services like food stamps and other aide have more than doubled.

“It’s nothing to see eight or 10 people lined up at 7 a.m. Waiting for us to get here,” she said. “We can certainly tell what the economy is like in our office.”

Ohio had the third largest increase in poverty rate among the states this decade and the third-highest decline in median household income, new 2008 data released by the Census Bureau show.

The state had a 2.8-percentage-point increase in poverty since 2000, trailing only Michigan and Indiana, according to data released today, Sept. 29, in the American Community Survey. In 2000, Ohio ranked 31st with a poverty rate of 10.6 percent. But by 2008, the state’s rank climbed to 19th with a rate of 13.4 percent.

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