DES MOINES -- A think tank is urging state officials as they plan recovery efforts to consider the special needs of low-income families affected by flooding.

In a report issued Tuesday, the Iowa Fiscal Partnership highlights the challenges these families face in housing, employment, child care and other necessities.

Even with federal assistance to help them, flood victims have to wait for that help to be available, meaning they have to rely on their savings to get them through, the report said.

"Low-income families, in particular, do not have the same personal assets - that can carry them through the disaster," said Lily French, one of the authors of the study.

French said the road to recovery is often longer for low-income Iowans. The report found that more than 10,000 Iowans lost work because of the floods.

"It takes a longer period of time for families who are already economically vulnerable or really in the margins to stabilize their life," French said.

The Fiscal Partnership is a joint initiative of two Iowa organizations, the Iowa Policy Center and the Child & Family Policy Center.

One of the most urgent needs cited in their report is affordable housing. An early estimate cited in the report found that Cedar Rapids lost close to 25 percent of its affordable housing to floods. A loss of rental housing units in flood-affected communities drives up rents, which affects the poor hardest.

Food banks, which already had been strained because of the rising price of food, are now dealing with families whose food needs have been magnified. The report also points to the closing of a no-frills grocery store in Iowa City in June as adding to the strain.

The report notes that 113 licensed preschools and child-care centers have either closed or relocated due to flooding, affecting an estimated 2,500 children. Low-income families have a more difficult time rearranging child care because of the cost, their sometimes nontraditional work schedules and in some cases, the use of public transportation, they said.

Victor Elias of the Child & Family Policy Center said the structure of the initial state task forces formed to study flood recovery efforts did not have a structure to look at what families as a whole needed.

Elias said he now thinks state officials are listening to the group's concerns.

Contact Charlotte Eby

at (515) 243-0138 or

chareby@aol.com.