By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. – James Baldwin
Over this past Fourth of July weekend, as fireworks lit up Toledo’s sky, gunfire did too.
Six men lost their lives, and several more were hospitalized in five separate incidents over just three days, exacerbating grief in neighborhoods already saturated with trauma.
Mayor Kapszukiewicz stated publicly, “These incidents are not connected, but together, they tell a heartbreaking story. It is a story of too many families grieving. A story of trauma that stretches far beyond the victims.”
The mayor was spot-on concerning the grief. Yet he gets it completely wrong when he asserts the incidents are not connected.
This crisis is not new. It is part of a pattern. Since the FBI began tracking national crime statistics, more than 270,000 Black Americans have been victims of homicide—a toll greater than the entire population of Toledo or mid-sized cities like Akron, Dayton, Grand Rapids, Michigan or Richmond, Virginia—enough to erase any one of those cities from the map.
This “slow genocide” did not happen in a vacuum. It is the cumulative result of neglect, poverty, disinvestment and public policies that continue to treat entire communities, such as Junction, Lagrange/North Toledo, Old South End and East Toledo, as disposable.
One in four children in Toledo lives below the poverty line. Tens of thousands of Toledoans rely on Medicaid and SNAP, not as handouts but as lifelines. Yet Congress has passed a bill that was grotesquely obscene rather than “beautiful,” slashing funding for both. The Ohio Legislature’s budget compounded the damage by diverting resources away from mental health and prevention and funneling them instead into building more prison beds.
Conservative estimates indicate that Medicaid cuts alone will strip approximately $150 million in annual federal matching funds, which are essential for keeping our local clinics, hospitals, and mental health providers operational. This money pays for addiction treatment, therapy for traumatized children and basic medical care that helps parents stay healthy enough to work. Without it, our region will lose around 1,200 jobs held by nurses, therapists, home health aides and social workers.
Hospitals will also be required to absorb an additional $25–$30 million per year in uncompensated care, which will push budgets to the breaking point and risk closures or elimination of essential services.
Food security will suffer just as deeply. SNAP cuts will erase approximately $100 million a year in food purchasing power across Lucas County. Small grocers, corner stores and complementary businesses, already on thin margins, will see revenues drop. When customers can’t afford groceries, these shops will close, taking with them the 150–200 retail jobs that sustain local families.
In addition, economists estimate that declining SNAP and Medicaid spending will reduce local tax revenues by at least $8–$10 million annually—money meant for schools, libraries and public safety. Altogether, these cuts will drain roughly $250 million annually from Lucas County’s economy, leaving lasting impacts on our streets, classrooms and sense of security.
Yet, even more painful costs will show up in both classrooms and emergency rooms. When families lose access to healthcare and food security, children come to school hungry, angry, tense or anxious and unable to focus, if they show up at all. Research also links cuts to SNAP and Medicaid with higher rates of chronic absenteeism, discipline issues and special education placements. When schools can’t meet these needs, suspensions rise—and students disengage and drop out of school, exacerbating the pipeline from classroom to juvenile detention to prison.
Neighborhoods, then, are forced to absorb the fallout. Studies show that when clinics close and social service jobs vanish, violent incidents rise by an average of 15 percent within two years. Communities with fewer behavioral health resources see increases of up to 25 percent in violent crime. Every dollar stripped from the safety net reappears in more police calls, more funerals, and more cycles of grief.
Seen through this lens, the violence over the July 4 weekend was the predictable result of when public resources are stripped away until desperation fills the void.
So, Toledo families deserve more than thoughts and prayers. They deserve policies that respect their humanity—and recognize that cutting resources is the costliest mistake we can make.
Unless we invest the resources that these communities need, we will experience many more weekends like July 4. More young lives cut short. More families mourning on sidewalks. More teachers burned out trying to manage the fallout in classrooms. More money spent cleaning up preventable tragedies that could have been stopped for a fraction of the cost.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org