Need for Social Services Surpasses Rates Before Recession

The need for social services is higher in most of the country than it was a decade ago, before the Great Recession, according the new data.

Only 13 states reported a lower level of need in 2017 than in 2007, says the latest Human Needs Index, a collaboration between the Salvation Army and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

The data from the report is gathered by Salvation Army units across the nation. The index’s scale begins at zero, with higher numbers indicating greater need for social services. The national average score for 2017 was 1.15, which was also the average score for the decade. The national index score rose to a high of 1.33 in 2012.

Nevada, with a Human Needs Index score of 4.76, has had the highest score for the past two years.

A lack of low-cost housing has fueled demand for services in the District of Columbia (index score of 1.34), where the homelessness rate is double the national average, and in California (1.18), where one in four homeless Americans lives, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Other findings:

• In 16 states, index values have grown more than 100 percent since 2007. For example, Arkansas, which had a score of 0.38 a decade ago, has seen that measure grow 677 percent, to 2.94, in 2017.
• Kansas — which, along with California, the District of Columbia, and Nevada, has had higher index scores than the national average every year since 2007 — had a score of 1.58 in the new study.
• Michigan, whose score sat below the national average only during 2007, had a score of 1.53 in the new report. Though some areas of the state have improved, the report said, high unemployment in areas like Detroit and Flint have hindered a full recovery in the region.