It's 16 degrees right now.
According to figures released by the New York City-based Homes for the Homeless, the average age of a homeless person is nine. It's estimated that, right here in Rochester, 22,000 children could be on the cusp of becoming homeless. That's two of every five children in the city.
There are many reasons why some kids and their families become homeless. A parent’s unexpected illness, a work layoff, or the inability to find and keep a job that pays a living wage. Or, it happens when women with children finally decide they must escape their living nightmare of domestic violence.
Ruth Nieboer, who is the Salvation Army’s director of social services shares that, too often, her staff has met some of these parents before… except the first time around, the parents were kids themselves. Seeing the ‘next’ generation come in for services is deeply disturbing.
I guess it doesn't really matter whether it's 16 degrees - or 85. When you don't have a home to go home to, and especially when you're a kid, it's just plain traumatic.
And, if you saw the Pursuit of Happyness, I'm sure you understand that having a strong parent can make all the difference. We invest $2 million each year into the Emergency Services Collaborative... it's eight agencies that help families in crisis... so that parents can get the support - and shelter - they need to get their lives back on track. So they don't have to ever be homeless again.
We're also investing another $9 million into programs that help kids find success. A few of those programs include shelter and help for teenagers who are homeless... kids who had to escape some pretty tough 'home' situations. The Center for Youth Services has a fantastic program.
Thanks for helping these kids... and these families. You're bringing stability back into their lives.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Nancy:
Thank you for your honest and insightful commentary on homelessness and children. May I add that a very large portion of the people that we (The Emergency Services & Family Stabilization Network) serve are parents with a high school education or less. This is seldom enough to land employment that pays a living wage and puts our children at risk. In a community where education is the number one industry this is appalling.
Additionally, we have a very large number of foster children in this community - approximately 1000. Many of these children will age out of the system and also be at risk of being homeless.
Blessings!
Dr. Phyllis
Homelessness, foster care and Rochester’s poor housing stock are more then housing issues; they are educational issues for children, as well. All of these issues cause children to be up rooted from their homes and schools. Even when children are able to stay in school during these times, they are very distracted with the fear of what the next day may hold for them.
There are some neighborhood schools in the city that have had 90% or more turnover rate of student during a given school year. In these very poor neighborhoods the housing stock is bad and the crime rate is high, so families move in hope of a safer place for their family. As Phyllis Moss stated, “the parents often have a high school education or less”, therefore are rarely able to find employment in jobs that will allow them to afford better apartments in safer neighborhoods. As with the homeless, education can not be a priority for these families. The household is so concerned with meeting the basic needs of food, housing, saftey, and clothing that the schooling for the children ends up being the least of their concerns. School is missed, homework goes undone and into the mind of the child is the thought that education really is not that important.
The Emergency Services and Family Stabilization Network continues to work on ways to stabilize these family and help the parents to get the assets they need to improve their household financially and to build positive support systems for the whole family. Building strong families will ultimately build a strong community.
Building stronger resources for these “at risk”, school age, children, similar to Strong Start (sited in the last blog) would help, also.
I understand that these issues are complex and difficult to address, but understanding how homelessness/housing, education, economics and family stability all intersect and impact each other, hopefully, will help us resolve these issues.
Thank you, Nancy and United Way for giving us this format, to address some of the community concerns.
Ruth Nieboer
Post a Comment