Maine’s affordable housing crisis is contributing to a big increase in student homelessness
Unhoused Kids in America??
This is a sad reality that is known, but widely unknown, because of the stigma attached to being homeless. Foster care is hard enough on kids, but homeless? This is a short article from MA, regarding some of their attempts to keep kids in school and helping them not just survive but live and graduate.
Introduction
Very few in the homeless community organizations think about the kids that are impacted during their critical years of development. Kids can be tucked in with family, with friends, with extended family, all to prevent homelessness. But they are still on the verge of a crisis, no food, no supplies, no support. This article looks at some attempts to change the picture for children going through homelessness.
Let’s look at His word as we start today
1 Timothy 5: 8
Anyone who does not provide for his own relatives, and especially for his own household, has denied the faith and is worse then an unbeliever
Deuteronomy 6: 6 & 7
There commandments I give you today are to be on your hearts,. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home. And when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
What say you…
Peer pressure is really tough if you just don’t fit in, the clothes, the book bag, and the look all have to be just right, but what about if your labeled homeless, forget it, toast
They say that there is aid enough for those who have deadbeat parents, parents who don’t do enough but the kids still suffer, but are the parents are fault in today’s world
Homeless Ain’t What You Imagine
So, as a society refuses to accept that adults can be homeless for a justifiable cause, so what about youths, children, and young ones under the tender age of 21? What is your reaction to them being homeless? It is real and it is very dangerous for them, and it is not what you imagine and stereotypes have invaded that homeless group as well.
Roofless, houseless, couch surging, hanging out with friends, lack of access to safe shelter, chronic runaway, fleeing domestic violence, stalking, and sexual abuse. Go ahead and take a moment and try and digest all of that. Youth homelessness is not what you imagine if you are ever thinking about it. Oh, and they are supposed to finish school and go on into adult life and be totally successful!
Anyone who has raised kids, taken kids to school, or taken part in after-school activities have all seen ‘that kid’ as the one who just seems to be struggling and you do not know why. And sadly, you do not know how to help or if you should help and so you just move on. But that kid maybe the one that needs the help and is a homeless unsafe minor needing a helping hand.
Lost in the Cracks
Very often these are the kids who just slip away from school, do not graduate and do not go on to a successful life and no one seems to understand why. There are many factors that the adults bring to the picture that directly impact the children and thus impact their inability to focus on education. But unless spoken of there is no intervention.
As stated in the article, with enough money you can’t get food stamps, but you do not earn enough to fill the fridge, and hungry kids do not learn well. You do not want them in the car, sleeping and moving so they move to a friend’s house and to other, multiple locations, instability hinders education and development. And all of this prevents the school officials from realizing that there is trouble brewing and implementing help to prevent another lost child. There is an in-built fear of government for the thought that the children will be removed from the parents due to the crisis. Many causes where the cracks could swallow the kids.
Stigma Attached for Kids
What is the one thing kids crave, especially as they enter into that tough time frame called the teen years? They want to fit in and get along, they do not want to stand out for any reason. Occasionally for a good reason a child may embrace standing out, but never for a bad, or intimate reason. This is one of the main reasons that kids fall through the cracks, peer pressure.
I do not completely agree that it takes a village to raise a child mindset, but on occasion, it does in fact take one. It requires teachers, bus drivers, school leaders, friends, other parents, and crossing guards to notice the very hard-to-notice signals that a child of any age is in trouble and begin the process of getting them help. Kids from tough home situations tend to be private and protective even when it hurts them in the long run and that simply means more work to break through and help them.
They don’t want to be that kid, they don’t want to bring attention not the home life, they can’t or won’t talk about the home and food shortage issues, they are helping to parent the younger ones, all are signals of trouble, but often remain well hidden
And honestly, the help is not simple, and cut and dried, ready to be applied to the child or family in need. That is yet another complication that prevents getting help to them in a timely manner. Kids have it hard enough but to then add another battle to that mix is a lost cause from the starting point and that must be changed.
Navigating the Crazy Maze
Most of the folks do not remember or have chosen to forget, that The Great Storm of 2022 was not the first major weather event with bad outcomes. There was a storm in 2021 that Texas was unprepared for, and people died and struggled for days to come through. The promises of change, improvement and getting the world better were made, and broken.
Phone calls were answered, solutions not engaged, shelters not opened, transportation not made ready, all of sudden the homeless were remembered. Care groups, and shelters and pantries were trying to get help to them, but the effort was of little effect in the face of the great storm.
From Identification to Graduation
School districts in outlying areas, rural farming, or scattered areas have higher needs, children with disabilities, families going into or through generational poverty, those kids that are there but are not there, invisible kids, these are those that the McKinley-Vento Act is designed to catch. Homelessness is not homeless as we think about it, for kids it is simply not having a safe, reliable shelter each night to call home.
This legislation is national, and it simply requires a phone call to trigger help once help begins hope is restored that this may be a child that will not fall through the cracks. They can be helped with school, sports, even school pictures, whatever is needed to get them from Identification to Graduation. The hardest part is getting them identified because they can be hard to spot.
Remember that these particular children and youth are often hiding in plain sight due to fractured and sometimes dangerous home environments. Even at times fear that they will be removed from the only family or parent that is with them at present. Helping them is a delicate, and gentle job but one that requires persistence to get them on track to graduation and a hope for a better future.
Conclusion
Kids suffering through tough times are supposed to be getting a hand up so that they are prevented from falling into the cycle of generational poverty and bad decision making that continues homelessness. But first, they have to be identified and located and help brought to bear in a child’s life that is often chaotic and unpredictable.
Getting help to a vulnerable child or their family, if they have one, is often a mass of confusing steps and phases that are hard to understand and follow up on when one does not have a secure place to lay their head each night. Although help is triggered quickly the outcomes are not a sure thing.
Finally, the care staff and school team have to be trained to know what to look for and how to help a child or youth who is in trouble and to handle every situation with great care and discretion. The need is rising rapidly due to the current rent and mortgage crisis and thus more and more kids are going to be at high risk of failure.
CTA…
Answer this,
Children and homelessness, is there any more of an urgent crisis looming in America right now? Children without the ability to access education to change their future, a crisis worth ending the political games for?
Children and homelessness, destroying families, causing damage beyond words, setting that child up for generational pverty and homelessness. What should and should not be done is a moral obligation, right?
This nation cannot continue to put the illegal ahead of the American without repercussions, and certainly not ahead of caring for the children of this nation, correct?
