AJC speaker reflects on vicious cycle of poverty

By Amy R. Kaufman

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Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director of Oregon’s Department of Human Services since 2005, illustrated the vicious cycle of poverty in Oregon at an American Jewish Committee lunch hosted by Bob Liebman Feb. 7.

Of the 12,000 children who are in foster care, Goldberg said, 60 percent came from environments where the parents were mentally ill or had substance abuse problems. Yet Oregon continues to bear the consequences of the “devastating” 2002 cuts in residential treatment services for substance abuse and mental illness, he said.

“The cost of foster care is $16,000 per year,” he said. “Think what that could do for addiction treatment.”

Community mental health systems are overburdened, he said, and mentally ill people who cannot obtain services often end up in correctional institutions at a cost of $20,000 per year.

Goldberg said Oregon is a “rapidly aging state,” but he is “concerned Oregon won’t have the resources and will fail to care for our seniors.”

Frequently, seniors fall into poverty because they have outlived their resources or their assets have been stolen, he said.

“The programs we have for care of the elderly make them exhaust their resources before we are able to help them,” he said. “People must impoverish themselves in order to qualify.”

In addition, he said, Medicare “doesn’t cover assisted living or long-term care,” and “medical reimbursements are unconscionably low.”

Goldberg said the state is also “in crisis” over child welfare.

“The story you haven’t heard is we’ve been ratcheting back on how we care for kids and the numbers of child welfare workers,” Goldberg said.

Confronting the general feeling that government is wasteful and inefficient, Goldberg said, “McKenzie Corporation, the largest business consultant in the world, was brought into our agency to look at the child welfare system. … They said, ‘You’re 30 percent under resource, no wonder you can’t do your job right.’”

Goldberg said he is also concerned about “community-based organizations that don’t have the support and infrastructure they need.”

“In 1992 we started the Oregon Health Plan in wonderful economic times,” he said. “We were largely successful but have been unable to sustain that vision.”

According to Goldberg, the best way for people to get out of poverty is to earn a living wage, yet half of all jobs in Oregon pay less than that. He said 17,000 working Oregonians with developmental disabilities earn less than a living wage.

In addition, he said, “Twenty percent of the working poor are in service industries, which are hard hit in difficult economic times.”

Goldberg pointed out the connection between poverty and disease.

“The face of hunger used to be gaunt; now it is obese,” he said. “The poor can afford calorie-dense foods, but it’s hard to purchase fruits and vegetables.”

He said schools are devising healthier menus to help kids avoid health problems.

Goldberg said, “Poverty will exist until we choose to end it. We have to stick our heads out the window and say, ‘We’re not going to take it any more.’”