Adults Struggle, Kids Suffer

No surprise, a recent NYT article describes behind-the-walls suffering when a parent is under/unemployed. Think of how many households are in that crisis. Then we'll think about the families who don't even have a house, or are in process of losing theirs.

Never in my 25 years of working on the issue of homelessness have I seen economic and systemic failures leaving millions facing peril. Homelessness is a "mere" symptom. We've been totally distracted by the hyper-focus on the issues de jour, ignoring the fact that millions of Americans face catastrophic realities each day. Poverty, with its octopus-like tentacles sucking life from the majority of our country, needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

I'm one week into a 26+ week backroads tour of our country, the LEARNING CURVE EXPRESS, to let homeless families and teens who don't make the federal definition of homeless by some ill-conceived bureaucratic standard share their stories. It's been an inspiring, dismaying process so far. Check the short interviews on the LCE site. Share them with your networks.

Seems to me if we have the supposed vast social networking capabilities, we should be able to make it work for us. Hopefully fund-raising will pick up--because the 3 grant request reject letters we received before I shoved off don't bode well for foundation support. HEAR US has accomplished lots in our 4 years of this unconventional approach to advocacy. With more and more people falling into the vortex of poverty, we have our work cut out for us. Join us!