Maine’s affordable housing crisis is contributing to a big increase in student homelessness
A Bad Trio: Students, School and Homeless
Has anyone slowed down long enough to see the growing generational poverty in Maine and other states, accelerated buy poor wages, housing unaffordability and now open borders
Introduction
I say it often, and maybe too often, but truth will always be truth, we cannot stereotype the homeless. The reasons and causes of homelessness are beyond counting. The Pandemic crashed many people’s worlds and in this short article we read of homeless students in Massachusetts, what stereotypes do you want to apply here? High school and young, over 350 students at last count could not live with a parent who had a roof over their head.
This article shows us all that they are attempting to do and trying to help these students, but the puzzle is just not coming together. Not enough buses, drivers, supplies and the like. The root problem is housing and there is no mention of fixing that.
Without housing you cannot address homelessness, for students or anybody else.
Let’s look at His word as we start today
Proverbs 22: 6
Start children off in the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it
Colossians 3: 12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience
What say you…
Hungry, tired and afraid, I can’t understand, they just need to go to school, and everything will be okay, they are probably just wanting to ditch anyway
They are having everything handed to them on the age-old silver platter, why are they still complaining, what else do they want, a 5-bedroom mansion?
Why is Social Service called a Maze?
Kids just want to be in school, this is mentioned in the article, but reality is not present when this statement is made. Children of families facing dire financial struggles cannot focus on life let alone school. All the pieces that the programs are providing are great and are likely helping the fringe students, the ones not quite on the streets, or are coach surfing. Reality has to be examined and dealt with these kids are facing a true battle to just stay in school, let alone graduate.
As is typical of all government-based services for the homeless and near homeless people and students, it is not a one stop shop and solution. Not to even mention the paperwork that is likely to be involved if it is like any other federal or state program. The kids cannot be in school, but they are becoming experts in red tape and jumping through hoops and answering questions in expected ways, not so much with truth.
Sadly it is a maze because at the root of the system of benefits, it is designed to only give out the funding and help to those who make it through the intended red tape maze that causes many to quit and just give up without help. All the agencies together quietly know and accept they can only help X number of people even though Y will show up, so instead of fixing the lack, they increase the maze to discourage the needy.
They are just looking for support
Kids going hungry, going dirty, and unkept, can you imagine the peer pressure, bullying, and struggles that they are facing in school? The answers are so few, not enough drivers, buses, or other answers, what is the outcome? One must wonder what the future holds for these kids who have hit bottom before they have even their teen years, the government has no answers and little ability to change anything. The simple answer is alternative housing and get it done, but NIMBY still rules and hinders.
Children today live a very different life than kids of 15 and 20 years ago, there is no central family hub or support, and mom is not home or not even around. Food is not a meal prepared and served at a table where conversations happen, chores are not handed out and rewarded. Life does not go this way hardly at all. Now it seems that kids are made to grow up way too soon and gaps are left undealt with. This is where the struggle for life, school, food, and family and stability meet head on and at times the child is lost.
Puzzle with Critically Needed Pieces Missing
Federal agencies and funding on one end, students on the other is a tug of war that will never be won. The article states that there are about 300 students who are deemed homeless, but is that number accurate? What about the student tucked away with family, friends, and extended family? Are they homeless or not, is their housing secure or not? As with any social ills when you do not go to the root the problem will always grow no matter how many band-aids are used. Without alternative housing, why alternative, we cannot build our way out of this crisis, that is why. The Federal system and the state as well can never catch up with the students struggling with homelessness.
The middle is critically short, clinicians, drivers, vehicles, all funded by mostly non-profits in the local areas, doing their best in a mounting tsunami of need. Resource centers such as the the Store Next Door are on the front line of making sure that kids and families have a fighting chance to come out on the even side, not the winning side, but even and maybe on the way to the whole one day.
The reason that puzzle pieces are missing and cannot easily be found and replaced is this nation has made bad moral decisions that have fundamentally changed its foundation. Now the eternal foundation cannot never be changed, for it is God the Lord of all. But starting in earnest in the 1960’s we started systematically kicking God out of many institutions where His ways and manner of doing things were the best. As a result, the destruction of the family, the church, and community is resulting in this crisis and until He is returned to His rightful place it cannot be fixed. That is the missing puzzle piece.
Students Homeless, Graduate?
The resource centers working in the local area have very lofty and hope-filled goals for these struggling students, graduation and a stable future. The numbers doubled from one year to the next , now up to around 320 students, and the number has no intent of decreasing soon. This is not counting those quietly tucked away with family, not receiving support.
Pre-Pandemic and Rental Crisis they noticed that a student would be a brief period of homelessness and then settle into stability under a year or so. Now what is being is what is known as ‘endemic’ homelessness, where it is not breaking, the cycle lasts for years, and stability is not found. It is this shift that is straining the current system and resources.
What this means is this state and many others are at risk of going from Periodical homelessness for students, to Endemic, lasting over a year or more, to generation, where they just do not recover, and their lives are never stable.
With all the strain and negative changes, one would think that if a root cause could be identified and dealt with it would be, correct. Well in this area as is across the United States, affordable Housing is an unacceptable answer for the many who need a way to avoid becoming homeless or getting off the streets. NIMBY still rules sadly, and the number of homeless children will grow and more will be lost.
Money & Policy Don’t Build Homes
$300,000 to support students from supplies to buses
$10 million in additional support state
But it is still stuck in a quagmire, not enough staff, supplies, buildings, buses, ect….
What no one is willing to admit is this, the root cause is a serious housing crisis, and no student or their family will be truly ‘safe’ from the risk of homelessness until the housing crisis is resolved.
For too long we have built for mega-mansions jet setters, the giant houses, and condos with all the rules and restrictions, and these come with this truth, the destruction of single-family homes
The persistent rental crisis that popped onto the radar right after the Pandemic is yet present and will not break until mindsets are changed and we accept that alternate housing must be embraced
Students are suffering, teachers are struggling, parents are not making and are facing the tough decisions, and the government is clueless while they support the illegal, and something has to change and soon
Final Word,
It appears as if the structure is there and then they are filling in with a bunch of broken sections of drywall and mudding them in hopes of them sticking together and in that, a solution will be formed. That simply never works. The kids in the tough spot never come out on top.
CTA…
Answer this,
Affordable housing why is it so unaffordable and why is so easy to allow students and their families to go month after in homelessness or on the very brink of homelessness////
Answer this,
A student is a young person who is just starting out in life, and life does not play fair, no matter the age, but to slap a handicap on them of homelessness when it can be changed is that going to be our legacy to them….
Answer this,
Is graduation, stability, is a strong future reality a true hope, and thought for these kids who have to go from resource center to resource to get food, clothing, help, and maybe hope, will they make it…..
