NEWSHOMELESS CHILDREN

Fulfilling the wishes and happiness of children is at the heart of the holiday season. So, now seems particularly timely for Mississippi to launch a new plan to end child homelessness (pdf) in the state.  What better way to set the season of giving in motion than by committing to finding safe and stable homes for the roughly 12,000 homeless children and youth of Mississippi?

The shocking number homeless youth in the state has steadily increased in recent years, according to the Campaign to End Child Homelessness and National Center on Family Homelessness, and can no longer be overlooked. The newly announced plan is considered the first coordinated effort in Mississippi to talk about family homelessness, as well as solutions. The campaign aims to increase public awareness of the issue, improve state and local policies to address homelessness, and perhaps most importantly, improve programs and services to prevent and ultimately end child and family homelessness. Reports can be studied all day long, but the key is putting those words into action.

Homelessness can wreak havoc on the adult brain, causing mental disorders like depression and post traumatic stress disorder in addition to being caused by them. Imagine what going without stable shelter does to the developing minds of young children.

In fact, one in three homeless kids has a mental health problem that affects their functioning by age 8. Long before that, though, 75 percent of kids 4 and under have developmental delays while about 40 percent of them have emotional and/or behavioral problems. What school teachers think is a problem child might just be a child with problems, a child who is homeless.

Why? Take your pick of reasons: stress, depression, fear, hunger, sleep-deprivation, or a parent who's so stressed, depressed, scared, hungry or sleep-deprived to give kids the care and attention they need. President Obama's federal plan pledges to end family homelessness by 2020. Make sure it happens!

Many people don't realize how many children are homeless, relying instead on the stereotype of the grizzled homeless veteran to distance themselves from the issue. But the average homeless family is made up of a single woman in her 20s and two children, at least one of whom is under age 5. The National Center on Family Homelessness estimates that 1.5 million children are homeless at some point each year. (I've got a feeling the number is even higher in recent recession years.)

Know any homeless or formerly homeless students who have persevered despite remarkable challenges and are ready to thrive in college? The Horatio Alger Association, in partnership with Give US Your Poor: The Campaign to End Homelessness, is awarding 1,000 college scholarships this year to students who've survived the specter of homelessness. More than 100 of them are worth $20,000 each, while the rest are state-specific awards of $2,500 to $10,000.

The deadline is this Saturday, Oct. 30.

Starting in January 2011, homeless students should also think of applying for scholarships from the LeTendre Education Fund for Homeless Children through the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. There aren't enough to go around, yet, but the awards could be life-changing for students who win them.

It's been said many times by many people how important education is. Most recently, in his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama said, "In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education. And in this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential."

Right now there are about one million homeless students in the United States, and where they live — or rather, where they don't live — has a huge impact on the quality of education the receive as well as their ability to learn.

While I was driving around the country this summer, a young man who is currently in the seventh grade walked from Tampa to Los Angeles for homeless youth. That young man is Zach Bonner, and Zach is one of the most amazing people I have ever met.

This was not his first walk. In 2007, he walked from his house in Florida to the White House. He also started Little Red Wagon Foundation to help kids. But I think he is also helping all of us older folks get motivated. I mean come on now, next time you think you can't do something, think about everything Zach has accomplished. Watch this and I think you'll see what I am talking about:

Last week our paths happened to cross and I was able to spend a little time with Zach and his mom. They were coming back from helping my favorite formerly homeless family move into their new apartment.

Christmas is probably the donation-spurring holiday — and for good reason — but many homeless children need a little help participating in other important events, like trick-or-treating. Growing up, was there anything more exciting than dressing up as a witch, a pumpkin or a rock star and going door-to-door collecting candy? Imagine how much more importance the occasion would have if costumes, much less new clothes and candy, even your own front door, were hard to come by.

Daisy Girl Scout Troop 1459 in northern Ohio has been collecting gently used Halloween costumes for homeless children. There's a decorated collection box in school that's also available for mass visitors. One trooper and her mom got the idea from reading about a similar project. Maybe someone reading this will initiate another one, keeping the domino effect going.

The six and seven-year-olds will earn "Daisy Learning Petals" and participation patches for their kindness and initiative. More importantly, they'll get a very early lesson in empathy when they deliver the costumes and take a tour of the Project Hope for the Homeless shelter. They won't soon forget it, and they'll be light years ahead of their peers without the same chance to learn about homelessness.

Housed children can have a hard time understanding why other children are homeless, so this provides a great opportunity to start the discussion. On a day when so many choose to pretend to be homeless to get laughs from their friends, here's a chance to explain that the homeless would rather be anything but. And on Halloween they can be, whether that's a princess, a frog or just a regular kid complaining about the old lady who gives fruit to trick-or-treaters.

Add this to the reading list: The Fair Housing Five, a new book about housing discrimination from the non-profit, civil rights organization the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

In the children's book, a little girl named Samaria and her friends are scared of a haunted house across the street. They come to learn, though, that landlords who turn away people because of race or disability are more frightening than any ghost. So the "Fair Housing Five" join together to fight housing discrimination in their community.

The GNOFHAC is trying to raise $5,000 by Dec. 12 in order to publish the book this winter. If you'd like to support the effort, contribute on the project's Kickstarter fundraising page. (Check back around the holidays for purchase information.)

As the organization puts it, "Children are deeply affected by housing discrimination. When a family can't find housing that meets their needs because of discrimination, it affects where a child goes to school, how she gets there, where her parents or caregivers work, the kinds of food and health care resources she has access to, the way she is treated by the criminal justice system and even the air she breathes." In fact, when a family can't find housing that meets their needs, they might not find housing at all.

Do you know how long it is from when the last bell rings at the end of the school day to when the first one rings the next morning?

Homeless students do. In Rock County, Wisconsin it's sixteen hours and 49 minutes. Taking its cue from that important number is the documentary "16:49:00," a local film festival entry that profiles three homeless students from nearby Beloit Memorial High School as well as area service providers, homeless advocates and school officials. (If you're nearby, catch a screening at the University of Wisconsin-Rock County in Janesville on Nov. 16.) These three are among the one million students homeless nationwide.

One student in the documentary is Kayla Brown, a 19-year-old who was living in her aunt's living room after her mother kicked her out. "It's hard to hear somebody say, 'I love you,' and kick you out the next day," she said. Now she's staying with her boyfriend's family.

Another is 18-year-old Cory Winters, an honor roll student who has been couch-surfing since he went out on his own at age 16. He said, "I felt like the only person in the world like this. I didn't feel human." He's currently staying with the family of a woman he has a six-month-old baby with.

Though Kayla and Cory are housed right now, the arrangements aren't stable. They're still struggling. Though they may feel alone, they're not; in some places there are homeless students in every classroom and in other areas there are entire independent schools devoted to homeless children.

UPDATE 10/13/2010: Behold the power of Twitter! Shortly after Mark published this story, skateboarder Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) found out about his fan Keifer and got in touch. He tweeted: "whatup Keifer! Please DM me your clothing & shoe sizes (and address) and I will send you some stuff. Stay strong! -Tony." Other users then began suggesting other items, like an iPad. The gifts will be great, but probably not as great as just being acknowledged.

I'll start at the beginning. Although this interview was taped in Dayton, Nevada, I first meet Kerry and his family months ago on Twitter. Kerry uses the handle @alleycat22469, his wife Sabrina is @bully_lover78 and their 13-year-old son is @keifer1122.

As I think about this family I get emotional. I cannot imagine raising a child in a small RV with no bathroom or running water. This family's life is far from easy, but together they keep fighting, and together they stay grateful for the little things.

Kerry has become the biggest evangelist for the We Are Visible community. He even collected cans to pay for the printing costs to distribute flyers at a local Homeless Connect day. Not sure any church or homeless services organization has done that.

Kerry is always thanking people on Twitter and keeps engaging new homeless people who join the community. I am grateful for Kerry because he's championed We Are Visible to become so much more than what I ever imagined.

When I started it, I envisioned homeless services helping homeless people via social media. But something far better has happened. Homeless people are encouraging and helping other homeless people.

What I also never imagined was a 13-year-old homeless boy connecting with me on social media. Keifer uses his Sony PSP to get on Facebook. He leaves me little notes because he does not have a keyboard to type on. Often he'll just leave a "hi" or "hugz" on my wall. Completely wrecks me every time. It's because of this young boy that I have a new vision for We Are Visible that I made public at the 140 Characters Conference in Los Angeles.

In a small room with two beds and a mini-fridge near the end of a chain of motels in San Jose, four-year-old Jasmine watches cartoons while her older sister is at school. Just outside the open door, standing in the parking lot, her mother Heather tells me about their trip here. She was in her late-20s and had a a good marriage and a good job at a veterinarian's office. This was up in Fresno, where her husband's family lived.

The couple was always social, she says, so the line where her husband's drinking crept from appropriate to problematic was, in retrospect, always tenuous. But past a certain point the trajectory down became intense and unmistakable. A year ago, Heather took the two girls and fled back towards familiar ground. San Jose is where she grew up, and she still has family in the county. They offer help where they can, but they can't offer much. Taking anything causes Heather feelings of failure and guilt.

Heather went to a family shelter for a short while, then to a shelter for women and children, but there are maximum allotted days — between 60 and 90, if you can qualify for an extension — and she has surpassed them. She is splitting the $62.01 cost of the motel room with two other women whose shelter stays expired at the same time  — one who is working full-time at Walmart and the other part-time, both looking for second jobs.

Earlier this year Senator John Kerry and others wrote to Majority Leader Harry Reid asking for an extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund. The fund was set up in 2009 to help with the stresses of the recession by creating jobs for low-income families and to assist those families in emergency situations. As it now stands, this TANF funding is set to expire on the 30th of this month.

Kerry began circulating a sign-on among his colleagues last week asking for

It's safe to say that when most folks think of homelessness, the first people that come to mind aren't part of a traditional family of four. But according to the recently-released 2009 Annual Assessment Report to Congress (pdf) from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of homeless families is a substantial — and growing — portion of the homeless population.

In 2007, just over 130,000 families spent time in homeless shelters. The number rose to 170,000 families in 2009 — an increase of 30+ percent in just two years. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from a recent article in the New York Times, suggests this trend is likely to continue, despite the federal government allotting to states $1.5 billion over three years for rapid re-housing and homeless prevention programs.

Being homeless is incredibly difficult for anyone but can be especially trying for families. A major difficulty for many newly homeless families is finding a shelter that will accept all members together. In addition to the common challenges faced by those staying in shelters — cramped quarters, curfews and (sometimes counterproductive) anti-loitering policies, among others — families often face an additional set of challenges.