This story was originally published here.
When Parker Palmer asks for my help, he gets it. He wanted information about how our nation is letting our kids down when it comes to hunger, homelessness, and poverty, and ways to help for his recent Substack post.
My latest Substack and Medium post twisted the Mother’s Day theme, pointing out the 1 million plus of currently and previously homeless moms not likely to be enjoying the all-American holiday — and those mothers have kids. Millions of them.
Shocking!
Most people have no idea of the scope of homelessness when it comes to kids. The following numbers are solid calculations, but significantly low since family homelessness is mostly invisible and historically underestimated.
- Babies and toddlers: 446,996 in 2022–23 (SchoolHouse Connection)
- Students, preK-12: a record-setting 1.5 million identified in public schools, 2023–24. (SchoolHouse Connection)
- Anew analysis confirms the undercount of the public school students. (Institute of Children, Poverty and Homelessness)
- More than 4.2 million youth, young adults and teens, with 700,000 unaccompanied minors. (National Conference of State Legislatures)
More than numbers
The issue of children experiencing homelessness, which impacts every community, needs to be explored and addressed at multiple levels beyond numbers. To be clear, I’m referring to homelessness according to a definition I helped get put into state and federal legislation.
How does homelessness hurt?
What gets missed by those who just look at the numbers is the impact — on the kids, parents, schools, and communities. Parents and kids share how homelessness affects them in my five-minute video.
Consider typical impacts as I’ve seen in the more than 40 years I’ve been working in this arena:
- Kids, in their prime developmental period, can be negatively harmed by trauma — their ability to learn, health, relationships, and more. Some eventually heal enough to function. Some won’t. Along with trauma, hunger (and inadequate nutrition), and lack of health care services costs all of us.
- Parents suffer when their kids suffer. Parents I’ve met and kept in contact with over the years continue to struggle with their current and past experiences of homelessness. They feel like failures. They agonize to see their kids grappling with poverty, hunger, instability, and more. Parents, despite their best efforts, find it difficult to escape homelessness. Lack of child care is one stumbling block.
- Schools were never equipped to deal withthis significant problem. High mobility and housing instability of students happens in school districts of all sizes and shapes, income levels and neighborhoods. Some schools deal well with the various challenges, some fail to even do the most basic, and legally required, steps — identify and educate students without homes.
- Communities— wow, this gobsmacked me! After decades of soaring family homelessness, many communities — rural, urban, large, small — have NO emergency shelters or services for families. Most programs tend to be inadequate, overcapacity, and underfunded. Too many places don’t seem to grasp how significant of an issue this is, or fail to acknowledge how inadequate their community’s response is. Children’s experiences of homelessness can lead to their homelessness as adults.
If it’s not cold enough, no shelter. Photo/ Diane D. Nilan
This needs to be said
Passage of HR 1, the megabill that slashed our flimsy safety net, will ravage the majority of our nation’s population, especially those on the bottom rungs of the economic spectrum. These actions will especially inflict harm on Black and Brown people. (More specifics about these massive cuts ).
What to do
What we can do is mitigate the suffering. If we summon our collective power, the possibilities for good exceed the scope of cruelty. Folks in Minnesota showed the rest of us what happens when the forces of goodness take on the evildoers.
- Political involvement.Surpass your comfort level and join events now happening in communities of all sizes and shapes. I’m active with our local Indivisible group. We combine our events with food collections for our local shelter.
- Become informed.Here’s my HEAR US booklist on family homelessness I’ve put together. My videos on this topic can be found on Vimeo and They feature kids and parents sharing their stories. Most are short in length but will pierce/warm your heart.
- Become involved. For those readers who are action-oriented, find suggestions in The Charlie Book: 60 Ways to Help Homeless Kids.Every public school district has an assigned Homeless Liaison. (LIAISON LIST) Some are more involved than others. Those who do their job well will welcome your help.
- Become involved 2.If your community has a shelter, see what they offer families, and help where you can. Financial support in this era of slashed federal support is always welcome. Volunteers are appreciated, but do it to meet their needs, not yours!
- Be courageous and outspoken.Issues like family homelessness fester if light doesn’t shine upon them. Most people, including (especially) elected officials on all levels, know little to nothing about kids and parents experiencing homelessness.
My new book:
What I’m Doing:
HEAR US Inc., my national one-woman nonprofit, has some exciting things in the works! Among them:
- Making Bad a Little Better, now out as an e-book, soon to be available in paperback, gives an overview of family homelessness to let readers know what to look for and ways to help in their communities.
- Memorial Blanket Project, an inspiring, all-volunteer project that involves people from across the globe to comfort those without homes while jarring the unknowing public about homelessness. Blankets will be displayed and distributed December 21, Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, in New York City. HEAR US is contributing a specially-designed, hand-quilted 3Melissas blanket.
- The Three Melissas — The Practical Guide to Surviving Family Homelessness,a unique handbook for families experiencing homelessness and for those wanting to help them, will soon be out as a 2nd edition.
What are you doing?
Post in the comments! Inspire goodness!
For more stories about poverty, housing insecurity, systemic neglect, community care, and the realities faced by homeless families and children, follow Fourth Wave. Also check out our Livestreams and sign up for our Newsletter. Let’s grow the community! Have you got a story or poem that focuses on women or other targeted groups? Submit to the Wave!
