Community | September 06, 2009 | 21 comments

Surge in homeless pupils strains schools

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1

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“It’s hard enough going to school and growing up, but these kids also have to worry where they’ll be staying that night and whether they’ll eat”

Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures.
The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.


Charity said of her last semester, “I couldn’t go to sleep, I was worried about all the stuff,” and she often nodded off in class.

Charity and her brother, Elijah Carrington, 6, were among 239 children from homeless families in her district as of last June, an increase of 80 percent over the year before, with indications this semester that as many or more will be enrolled in the months ahead.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Current Tonight,   Quality of Life Issues,   Quality of Life
  2. tags:
    Children,  School,  Current Tonight,  Homeless
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21 comments // Surge in homeless pupils strains schools

  • quanta
    • 0
      quanta  

    • In this rapidly changing ecomomic downturn, these are the ones who are ultimately paying the price. hopefully soon people will stop relying on this failing obsolite government and realize the way to change is thru technology not government. We need to establish ,in every city in this country some form of housing for homeless families, not government subsidized but people run organizations, non profits ,donated properties, or even rooms in the home, anything to get these people a start . maybe foreclosed empty properties should be seized by the people, or at least some form of billeting. God it's so hard to come up with a plan. It's heartbreaking. I was homeless for a year and my husband was recuperating having survived cancer treatment, took us 10 years to reestablish ourselves, and even now it's the bearest of existances.

    • 2 years ago
  • galwayman
    • 0
      galwayman  

    • The population of homeless families has increased three-fold over the last 10 years! Housing should be a right for every family in this country!

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • biggranny
  • randomized
    • 0
      randomized  

    • This has been long coming thanks to a FAILED past 8 years and even more so. I'm really sorry to hear about this but I've seen it in my area and I know plenty of people that are living paycheck to paycheck and worry about this problem constantly.

      People are looking for a easy and blink of an eye quick fix and no, it's not like that. We let someone else mess it up, now let someone else clean it up (or at least try to ..)

    • 2 years ago
  • sidewaysclyde
    • 0
      sidewaysclyde  

    • This is sad, but very much a reality. Housing should be a priority for people who have been displaced by the financial crisis. This is going to be a rising issue until it gets so frontal and unavoidable that leaders will have to help.

    • 2 years ago
  • hunzedog
  • MilchMann
  • Revelation_Machine
    • 0
      Revelation_Machine  

    • We can build roads in Alaska no one is going to use, bail out Big Businesses who only got that big under the Social Darwinism theory (aka if the company dies, it was weak and was meant to), and Build new Suppressive and Offensive weapons....

      Oh, and we can't give our children homes, or food, or clothes, or education, or a country with a scrape of care.

      Go America.

    • 2 years ago
  • MilchMann
  • idealist
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  

    • It is everywhere . Last year there was only one homeless kid in my son's class . Now there are more families with kids in the same school . Some have moved away in the hopes of finding work . I hope they had luck .

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
  • RojoGatto
  • Revelation_Machine
    • 0
      Revelation_Machine  
    • asherp:

      A Socialist uprising would be good for getting people jobs probably... mostly becuase many people will die before that happens and there will be plenty of open jobs, like hauling bodies, or cleaning up the destroyed buildings, inventing new medicines for the various diseases and plagues wrought from the countless dead, new unassailable positions of unfair power, and of course, The Numero Uno Position of the one who will bring us past Socialism and right into Communism... Oh wait, we already have Obama.

    • 2 years ago
  • Darevalo
    • 0
      Darevalo  
    • asherp:

      wow... at the death and dead dying dead bodies dead above my dead commenting dead socialism is bad dead post.

      dont think the body count is too high in sweden...
      if anything the reason for the dead bodies would be panicy right wingers freaking out and unlocking their AR 50's or what ever.

    • 2 years ago
  • EtVoila
    • 0
      EtVoila  
    • asherp:

      Darevalo,
      my thoughts exactly.

      At the simple mention of the idea of Socialism, all of the loonies completely lose it. I can't imagine what they'll do when it actually happens. I'm very interested to find out.

    • 2 years ago
  • Revelation_Machine
    • 0
      Revelation_Machine  
    • asherp:

      It's not a right wing left wing bullshit. this is the Land of the Free. That should explain it right there, We died for Freedom in the past, We die for it Now, We WILL die for it in the future.

    • 2 years ago
  • MilchMann
  • kstein
    • 0
      kstein  

    • New York Times, didnt the mayor announce an answer to homelessness was a one way ticket to anywhere, claiming they might find a job in a different city. drain on the public schools?!?!?! WHAT????and to be forced to take and teach the homeless when they have so much turmoil??? 1 MILLION STUDENTS HOMELESS WOW , no home no food what are they draining the Dept of Ag food programs too. This amazes me, I had no ideal it was this big! when did the tipping point for this go to charity to indifference??I vow to do my part for this, and I dont even live in an area affected by homelessness.

    • 2 years ago
  • krush_productions
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