NEWSCHILDREN IN POVERTY

The parking lot was their playground. Now it's gone, thanks to an apparent deal between the Congressman, Georgia's majority Senate leader and an assumedly hapless mope.

The Oglethorpe Inn, off the exit ramp in the decimated carpet industry town of Calhoun, GA, is like one of thousands of nondescript motels peeking at our nation's Interstate highway system. Gordon County, sitting in northwest Georgia, where 1 in 10 school children are reported to be homeless, has no shelter for those without. So the 2-story motel became "home" for about 80 people who lost the keys to their own places.

Now the kids and their families are forced to involuntarily check out of their 12' x 12' abodes to search for a safe place to sleep, do homework, play, and keep their stuff.

Good luck with that.

She sat in my office, light reflecting from her rippling jet black hair, her dark eyes shining  with tears dripping incessantly over the chiseled planes of her face.

She told me the history associated with each scar and injury: this one from a stabbing, this one from a gunshot, this one from a beating by her man. It was easier for her to tell me those stories than to recount what brought her to my office that day. Finally she told me of the concussion, the broken jaw, the bleeding from her ears, and the reconstructive surgery she needed "down there."

She and her 11 year old son had accepted help from a man whom she didn't know well. He kidnapped her and shoved her son out of the car. He went to the police station, but she was not found until three days later. Fortunately, the kidnappers neighbor saw her emerge naked and bleeding from his apartment, and called the police. Her assailant had finally fallen asleep and she was able to untie herself and flee, shaking in fear that he would wake up and use the gun he had threatened her with so often.

Other than racking up 2,500 miles on my road-weary motorhome, emptying the bank account to pay for gas, and adding to global climate change, what did our two week Southern (Dis)Comfort tour accomplish in the world of helping homeless people?

At my last post, Pat LaMarche and I were headed to Birmingham, AL, "The Magic City," to nudge a much-needed movement to house homeless youth ages 19-26. The event brought together community members, social service types, media and experts - two courageous young men who knew life on the streets from living there, Courtney Brooks and Josh Pugh.

A little boy looked at the toothbrush in the bag of toiletries he'd been given and exclaimed, "I've never had my own toothbrush."

Our travels for Southern (Dis)Comfort tour today took us to an impressive clothing distribution center in Shelby, NC, stocked and staffed by volunteers from the local Junior Women's Club. They raise funds and purchase new clothing and toiletries for the hundreds of homeless kids in this typical small (21,000) city in south central North Carolina.

Seeing the smiles on kids faces when they receive a new outfit, get a stack of new undies and socks, and walk out with their own toothbrush has to be rewarding for volunteers running this operation. They do it right, with dignity, and give families a chance to "look normal" despite their abnormal living conditions.

“Maggie,” a quiet, studious 13-year-old athlete didn’t want to lose her world: the school she attended since first grade, her friends, teachers and coaches. She and her mom stayed in a shelter about 25 miles from their little farm town. Maggie, who played on the boys' football team, urged me not to tell her homelessness secret.

She was massively relieved when I told her of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, a little-known law that protected her stability of education. One oft-ignored offshoot of McKinney-Vento is homeless students can participate in after-school activities - clubs and sports - the same as non-homeless students.

Surprise—millions of kids in this country are homeless. Stereotype-busters: homeless kids play sports, excel in chess, lead school clubs, volunteer in local activities and go to college.

The hit movie “The Blind Side” connected the dots between football and homelessness. So let’s focus on what for some is January’s salvation—who makes it to the Super Bowl. What does this have to do with poverty? A few things….

Homeless children. Those are two words that should never be in the same sentence. Yet family homelessness is increasing.

A new report by the Institute for Children, Poverty & Homelessness (ICPH) has found that since 2008, family homelessness in New Jersey has increased by over 40 percent. There has been an increase in the number of homeless children by nearly 14 percent.

The reasons cited for the increase in homelessness include unemployment (31.3 percent), eviction (25.7 percent), and the high cost of housing (22.3 percent). In Essex County, home to the city of Newark, there was more than a 136 percent increase in family homelessness.

The fear of many homeless advocates in our nation's capital just got one step closer to becoming reality.

For the second time, the DC Council voted to require those seeking shelter to provide proof of DC residency. If congress doesn't vote the bill down this month, it will become law and go into effect shortly thereafter.

Low-barrier shelters, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and human trafficking, are exempt from the new law.

But many are up in arms about the new act, and for good reason.

The law was designed to ensure that homeless families from DC were sheltered before families that come from elsewhere - sometimes having been sent by city officials in Maryland and Virginia. There are also accusations that Maryland and Virginia are denying services to homeless people from DC even as they send their homeless to the capital.

But at the hearing, a number of homeless advocates were visibly upset and pointed out that the bill is hurting the very people that it is designed to protect. An employee of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless led the charge as they told Councilman Tommy Wells and others that families who were actually from Washington, DC were being denied shelter.

There are numerous things for low-income elementary and middle school kids in southeast Washington, DC to do at the City Gate Merrick Center after-school program.

They can unwind with a basketball game or musical chairs, enjoy a wholesome snack in a safe atmosphere, volunteer at an assisted-living center, talk to college students about college life and how important it is to stay in school, or even play a game of 'Math Bingo', which was shown in a recent study to improve the math proficiency of 94 percent of participants by 50 percent or more.

But lately, the options for these kids have changed, after the Merrick Center had to close because DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education has failed to pay CityGate the $60,000 it was promised a year ago as well as an additional $15,000 more recently.

Recently I had the privilege to share our new documentary "On the edge" with a group of women staying in a shelter in Tallahassee.  One woman, hearing that my hands were freezing when I came in to set up, gave me one of those new-fangled hand warmers, a toasty little treat for my hands. This act, plus their response to the video touched my heart. So I was feeling all warm and fuzzy when I came out to Tillie, my RV plugged in at this shelter for the night.

But then I peeked at my Facebook page and, lo and behold, my warm, fuzzy feeling turned to foaming at the mouth. A woman I know from back in Illinois made a derogatory comment about homeless people's lack of "personal responsibility," continuing on with the textbook diatribe about people wanting to be homeless, and no need to support them... blah, blah... barf.

New Orleans. A beautiful city that has suffered more than enough trauma in recent years... Now there is a new tragedy.

Eight homeless youths were burned to death as they tried to escape the cold weather in an abandoned warehouse in the Ninth Ward district. The eight kids who perished in the blaze have yet to be identified, but they were believed to be in their late teens to early twenties. "We don't know their IDs," Fire Department officials told The Huffington Post. "They were so burned we cannot even tell their genders."

Please sign the petition demanding action!

The Ninth Ward is the same area that was severely devastated during Hurricane Katrina. Over the summer, we expressed our outrage at the continued neglect of the citizens of this fragile area of the city. But the neglect and devastation continue.

Since Katrina, rates of homelessness have doubled.  Linda Gonzales of New Orleans Mission estimates there are around 3,000 people each night without a place to go. New Orleans city shelters only have around 800 available beds. It doesn't take a math major to realize this is a very skewed equation. As a result, many of these people resort to squatting in various abandoned buildings to escape the elements.