SocietyGuardian.co.uk recently reported that many families with disabled children live in poverty. I include an excerpt:
Almost all families with disabled children are suffering from financial difficulties, according to a report published today.
Many struggle with the extra costs of raising disabled children, which is calculated to be three times higher than other children, and they face barriers to working, said the Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) campaign, an alliance of Mencap, Contact a Family, Council for Disabled Children and the Special Educational Consortium.
More than nine in 10 (93%) families reported some form of financial difficulty, with only 6% saying they were comfortably off.
The report said more than one in five families with disabled children cannot afford to feed their family properly. Such families are 50% more likely to be in debt than others and 50% less likely to be able to afford new clothes or school outings when compared with other families.
Steve Broach, the EDCM campaign’s manager, said: “It is scandalous that families with disabled children are forced to choose between going into debt or going without.
Though the above report comes from the UK, the same problems exist in the United States.
Leaving disabled children and their families in debt will cause the disabled child to receive inadequate education and life skills. If society instead invests in these disabled children, they can develop into very productive members of society.
The average family struggles to survive. In fact, the average American family lives in debt. If they cannot afford average life, they definitely cannot afford the extra expenses of a disabled child. Ending the social corruption that causes working class families to live in poverty will give them more resources to take care of disabled children–as well as other similar obstacles.
More to the specific issue, we can directly help the disabled children themselves by providing them with student loans. These student loans need to include money for food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare, and healthcare needs to include costs associated with their disability (e.g. wheelchairs, seeing eye dogs, etc.).
Like all children, disabled children have great potential and complete access to full student loans can create an environment that lets these children reach their potential on their own and without charity. They can then take care of themselves and pay their own expenses, including paying off their student loans.