Parents in Colorado are filling plastic grocery bags with toilet
paper and taping them to their babies as makeshift diapers because
they are not able to afford essentials, forcing them to try
ineffective and unhygienic alternatives so they can pay for food
and housing.
Mothers and fathers also are washing soiled diapers for reuse or
waiting longer to change their babies as they struggle in a economy
destroyed by a pandemic, people who work in Colorado diaper banks
said.
“When you don’t have diapers you do desperate things,”
said Lorna McLean-Thomas, warehouse and volunteer coordinator at
Denver-area diaper bank
Weecycle. “Families are not eating so the baby can have
diapers and formula.”
In February, The Nappie
Project, a diaper bank serving the Fort Collins area, gave out
about 13,800 diapers. By November, that number rose to 47,800.
Weecycle provided more than 1 million diapers in 2020, more than
quadrupling the 250,000 diapers the organization distributed in
2019.
“And we’re still not fully meeting the need,” said Jan
Touslee, a founder of the The Nappie Project.
Many of the families the two organizations are serving have
never relied on food and diaper banks before, McLean-Thomas and
Touslee said. Those families include adults who lost work due to
the pandemic or are working but not making enough money to pay for
essentials. Many clients of Weecycle worked in the service industry
or
at large event centers, such as Ball Arena.
Without clean diapers, babies are more likely to develop rashes
or urinary tract infections.
It costs at least $80 a month to diaper a child, according to
the National
Diaper Bank Network.
That’s money that Ruby Perez just doesn’t have. Perez lost
her full-time job at a small Denver hardware store when the
business closed in the spring because of COVID-19, she said. She
loved that job because she was allowed to bring her kids — ages
2, 5, 12 and 17 — to the shop while she worked.
Without work, it’s hard for the single mom to pay for
childcare so she can look for a job. Without a job, it’s hard to
pay for food and diapers. Perez applied for food stamps for the
first time in her life, but is waiting to be approved. For a while,
the family had some income from her 17-year-old’s part-time job
at a thrift store, but his hours slowly dwindled to none.
So on Tuesday, Perez strapped her toddler into the car and drove
to a drive-through food and diaper giveaway, organized by Weecyle
and a food redistribution organization outside a church in
Denver’s Villa Park neighborhood. More than 60 cars wrapped
around the block and onto nearby West Sixth Avenue.
Perez was especially excited about the possibility of getting
some diapers, which she estimates she spends at least $100 a month
to purchase. That expense has grown because she can no longer buy
in bulk after she canceled her Sam’s Club membership to save
money.
“They’re so expensive,” she said. “I gotta go to
whatever help is available.”
The vast majority of government income and food assistance
programs do not allow people to use the money for diapers, said
Joanne Samuel Goldblum, CEO of the National Diaper Bank
Network.
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“It’s safe to say this is a problem that cannot be dealt
with through charity and corporate support, there needs to be a
governmental response,” she said.
The crushing growth in diaper need is not unique to Colorado,
Goldblum said. Across the country, diaper banks are reporting
distressing increase in demand.
“We’re continually hearing they’re running out of
diapers,” she said.
Even before the pandemic, about a third of U.S. families
struggled with diaper need, according to the National Diaper Bank
Network. The need also perfectly illustrates the cycle of poverty
that ensnares so many families.
Reusable cloth diapers might be an option for some families, but
often laundromats do not allow people to wash diapers. Many
child care programs require parents to provide disposable
diapers. If a parent can’t afford to pay for child care or
diapers, they may not be able to work. Without work, they cannot
afford diapers. And if a child gets a urinary tract infection or
other illness from wearing dirty diapers, families have to lose
work to care for the child while also shouldering medical
costs.
Erin Kay of Weecycle unboxes baby gear at Lalo Delgado Campus in
Denver on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020.
“Families at food banks would cry when I would say, ‘You can
have diapers,’” Touslee said.
Colorado families’ situations will only worsen when
state and federal eviction moratoriums expire, Touslee said.
Families who owe rent will be forced to pay those debts or risk
losing their housing, leaving less cash for food, diapers and other
necessities.
“For these families, this need will not go away quickly,”
McLean-Thomas said. “A vaccine will not fix this. We have a long
haul to get people back to self sufficiency.”
