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Maybe homelessness activists can be dismissed as kooks. I'm sure lots of people have heard my rants and dismissed me as a well-intentioned but misguided troublemaker.
Today, a Reuters' story at least touches the agony of families caught up in the wide reaching mortgage scandal. Families, once securely housed, now living in cars. We call that H-O-M-E-L-E-S-S.
The good news--their kids can stay in their same schools if that's desired and feasible. Thanks to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, homeless kids can stay in their school of origin or attend the school nearest to where they are now staying.
The bad news--this latest spate of homeless families will not find much help in their communities. Homeless shelters are too few and overcrowded. Financial assistance, no matter how well-deserved and desperately needed, is all but dried up. So families who have been through hell and back as they fell into the vortex of the mortgage debacle are SOL.
It's like having a small fire in your house and finding empty fire extinguishers. How did our safety net get so tattered? Did anyone pay attention to the dismantling of housing and emergency assistance over the past 20 years?
In addition to obvious fall-out with this national disaster--and it is a disaster when so many people lose their homes--it doesn't take a PhD to figure out that the kids will be the ones who suffer the most.
Seems to me that it's high time to pay attention to the needs of thousands, if not millions, of kids and their families, some newly-homeless, some have endured this nomadic lifestyle for way too long. Any presidential candidates want to pay attention to this issue?
The good news--their kids can stay in their same schools if that's desired and feasible. Thanks to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, homeless kids can stay in their school of origin or attend the school nearest to where they are now staying.
The bad news--this latest spate of homeless families will not find much help in their communities. Homeless shelters are too few and overcrowded. Financial assistance, no matter how well-deserved and desperately needed, is all but dried up. So families who have been through hell and back as they fell into the vortex of the mortgage debacle are SOL.
It's like having a small fire in your house and finding empty fire extinguishers. How did our safety net get so tattered? Did anyone pay attention to the dismantling of housing and emergency assistance over the past 20 years?
In addition to obvious fall-out with this national disaster--and it is a disaster when so many people lose their homes--it doesn't take a PhD to figure out that the kids will be the ones who suffer the most.
Seems to me that it's high time to pay attention to the needs of thousands, if not millions, of kids and their families, some newly-homeless, some have endured this nomadic lifestyle for way too long. Any presidential candidates want to pay attention to this issue?
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