Survey: Vulnerable need more state help

In a divisive time, Floridians are pretty united on one issue: The state should be doing more to help its more-vulnerable residents, whether it’s people dealing with physical disabilities, veterans in need of assistance or victims of domestic violence or human trafficking.

That’s the conclusion of the Sunshine State Survey in a random poll of 1,215 adults in July and August. The survey is the product of a collaboration between the University of South Florida College of Arts and Sciences and The Nielsen Company LLC.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey (ACS), 13.3 percent of the people living in Florida claimed a disability.

The Bureau gathers statistics on six types of disability, defined as difficulty with hearing or seeing (asked of all respondents); mental functions (asked of people 5 or older); walking (5 or older): self-care — dressing or bathing (5 or older); or independent living — things such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping (people 15 or older).

Fifty-one percent of the respondents in the Sunshine State Survey rated the state’s assistance for the disabled either fair (33 percent) or poor (18 percent), with only 5 percent saying it’s excellent.

Areas with higher populations of seniors, such as Naples (28 percent), were more likely to give a rating of poor.

The ACS shows 47.1 percent of the state’s residents age 75 and older have a disability, with walking (30.5 percent) the most common one.

For all ages, males (13.4 percent) are slightly more likely than females (13.1 percent) to have a disability. That holds true through all the age groups surveyed until those 75 and older, when a higher percentage of women (48.4) than men (45.3) claim a disability.

Sunshine State Survey respondents hold the level of the state’s assistance for veterans in even lower regard — 63 percent rated it fair (29 percent) or poor (34 percent), and just 6 percent said it’s excellent.

The latter number rises to 12 percent in North Florida, however, which has most of the state’s military bases, a higher concentration of veterans and, the survey says, stronger support networks.

With 1.5 million veterans as of 2016, according to the survey, the state has the third-highest veteran population in the country; 24.8 percent of them claim a service-related disability, according to the ACS.

Survey respondents also gave the state low marks for its efforts to stop human trafficking — the exploitation of humans for forced labor or sex. Sixty-one percent said it’s doing a fair (28 percent) or poor (33 percent) job, and only 3 percent rated it excellent.

In 2016, the state ranked third in the number of calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, according to its data.

Tampa (36 percent “poor”) and Naples (38 percent) were the areas giving the lowest rating. Each is a major target areas for traffickers, the survey says — the former because of its adult entertainment industry and the latter because of a vulnerable population of agricultural workers.

More opinions

Also in this installment of the survey, respondents said:

• Providing more assistance for victims of domestic violence is a move in the right direction (84 percent).

• The state is doing too little to eliminate a backlog in rape kits that need to be processed (48 percent).

• The state is doing a fair or poor job in children’s healthcare (48 percent).

• Requiring employers to provide parental leave to new fathers would be a move in the right direction (63 percent).

• The state’s protections for the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/questioning community are “about right” (40 percent), with 27 percent saying the state is doing too little and 24 percent expressing no opinion.

Email: bmudge@venicegondolier.com