Poverty brings challenges when identifying child abuse

“We investigate more cases than we have the capacity to do so,” said Monterey County Department of Social Services director Elliott Robinson.

But what makes the issue more complex is the number of children living in poverty in Salinas, California.

“We need to address violence, we need to address poverty, we need to address overcrowding,” said Robinson.

Officials say many times reports of abuse really boil down to children living in poor conditions, struggling to survive.

“You don’t want to jump the gun,” said Salinas Police Department Cmdr. Mike Groves..”You just want to balance it to make sure that it’s as fair as possible.

Salinas police said they’ve been trained to identify child abuse, but even for them it can be hard to identify.

“It tracks back to are the needs of the child being met and are they well fed and taken care of and safe,” said Groves.

The Food Bank for Monterey County knows firsthand that childhood poverty in Salinas is a real problem.

“We have kids in this county who are going to sleep hungry,” said Melissa Kendrick, director of the Food Bank for Monterey County.

They said 25 percent of children in Salinas receive food from their agency and those numbers are continuing to climb.

“When parents get done paying for rent and paying for other necessities there’s just no money left over for food,” said Kendrick.

The food bank has a new program called Nutrition on the Weekend, where they send children home with food so they can have something to eat when school is out.

Another concern for them right now is what to do when kids get out of school for the summer because thousands of kids will have nowhere to go for a meal.