In just about two hours, Darlene Williams navigated five of her children through a labyrinth of medical screenings and vaccinations Saturday at the annual Homeless Back to School Health Fair.
With the support of private donors, 130 volunteers and grants, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless provided eye, dental and hearing exams along with backpacks and lunches for about 220 children who don’t currently have a place to call home or have recently transitioned into stable housing.
“I rely on this,” Williams said, as she and her children moved around the Stout Street Clinic. “The coalition has been the best thing for me since I’ve been here.”
The clinic is the only free health care facility for the homeless in Denver. There are about 3,000 homeless children in the city, according to the coalition.
“A lot of these children are coming to us from shelters or motels,” said coalition spokeswoman Paola Farer. “And some are living doubled up with friends or family. Last year there was a family living in their car.”
It was around noon when Williams and her children finished with the doctors and sat down in the courtyard of the Coalition housing development on Stout Street.
They opened their free lunches, bought with grant money from the CoBiz Cares Foundation. They excitedly pulled out new school supplies donated by private sponsors, including lacrosse fans who brought supplies to Denver Outlaws games.
Williams and her eight children are from New Orleans and were first brought to the Lowry shelter in Denver after Hurricane Katrina. Now they live in Coalition housing.
On Saturday, her son Jaheem Mayfield found out he needed glasses and her daughter Mariah Mayfield got her first of three HPV virus vaccinations.
Glasses were ordered for 35 kids, compared with 10 last year.
Colorado has the 18th-largest percentage of children living in poverty in the country and had one of the fastest-growing rates of child poverty between 2000 and 2008, according to a 2010 report by the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a policy advocacy group.
“In a tight economy, we have to compete for less money while serving more people,” Farer said.
Some kids have come in with glaucoma, cataracts and extremely bad vision, said Lynette Bridges, the chief executive of Children’s Eye Physicians.
Children’s Eye, Children’s Dentistry of Aurora and Advanced Audiology donated time and supplies.
Transitioning into new living situations and staying in other people’s homes in cramped conditions leads to increased learning disabilities, exposure to infectious diseases and slower development of speech and motor skills, said Renee Shykind, the clinic’s pediatric nurse.
Sarah Horn: 303-954-1638 or shorn@denverpost.com
