In June 2025, Jody Walker stood in front of Ohio lawmakers at a senate finance committee meeting in Columbus. As the head of South Central Ohio Job and Family Services, he was desperate for help. Twelve months later, Walker’s fears were realized right in his own backyard.
On 30 June, 16 children were found in a dilapidated home in Hamden, a short drive from where Walker works. Several were found near death; two children were flown to a level one trauma medical facility, where one was placed in an intensive care unit, according to reports. Gary Siders and Christina Siders, the children’s grandparents, and Gary Siders II and Elizabeth Siders, their parents, were charged with 16 counts of child endangerment.
In August, Gary Siders II and Elizabeth Siders were additionally charged on separate counts of sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, who was not their own child. All four have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The Siders case illustrates major shortcomings among Ohio’s political and administrative authorities when it comes to supporting the most at-risk in society, say experts.
A rural region with fewer than 13,000 residents, Vinton county is the least populous county in Ohio. Property tax levies in the area fail to come close to covering the costs of caring for at-risk children, which for South Central Ohio Job and Family Services rose from less than $4m in 2015 to more than $10m in 2024. In fact, the conditions facing the children were discovered by accident.
Law enforcement went to the property to serve arrest warrants on Gary Siders II and Elizabeth Siders on charges unrelated to the neglect of their children. For more than 30 years, Republicans have broadly controlled governing and lawmaking in Ohio, regularly holding a supermajority in the state legislature. According to the Annie E Casey Foundation, a private philanthropic organization focusing on children’s needs, while the percentage of children in Ohio living in high-poverty areas has fallen in recent years, figures for child deaths, children without health insurance and children aged three and four who are not in school all have risen.
Financial disclosure information from the Siders family published by Los Angeles magazine found that Elizabeth Siders had no income and her husband’s salary amounted to $1,500 per month in 2021. Ohio isn’t alone in struggling to fund care for vulnerable children. Nationally, a swathe of cuts including supports such as food benefits for 1 million children are under way.
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