Numbers of Homeless Kids Swelling

With increase in number of homeless kids, America is beginning to look like a third world. A recent report by the National Center on Family Homelessness of Needham (Massachusetts) 1.6 million kids are out there on the streets living out life in America in 2010; some were in motels and shelters or squeezing in with friends and relations. They do not have a home.

Why is this happening to the richest nation in the world?

The figures indicate there has been 38% hike in homeless children since 2007 said Ellen Bassuk of the centre (president). It is a result of the foreclosure triggered crisis that led to the recession. The number of families with women as the head has swelled.

The figures released by the Census Bureau are also sobering. The facts have been garnered based on novel and experimental method. The target is to present a more comprehensive picture about the poverty related situation.

It indicated that 48% of the people were either in the poverty zone or struggling with low incomes. The poverty yardstick of the bureau (Supplemental Poverty Measure for 2010) released last November it is $24,343 annual for a family of four.

Septuagenarian Alfredo Brown, an officer who has retired from the army, of Chapman Partnership (deputy director) said that currently he is seeing this daily. The agency is funded by and large from 1% tax levied on beverage and food on big eateries.

The organization runs sprawling shelters for the homeless numbering two in Miami-Dade County. Brown commented, “I see so many children and mothers that are homeless and sleeping in their car or an abandoned building, or an old bus. It’s a sad situation that we live in a country that has so much and many people have so little”.

For America this social problem is something new. Till now those who lived on the streets were adult alcoholics and drug addicts.

During the middle of the 80’s the proportion of homeless families was less than 1% informed Bassuk. But today they are a third of the homeless group. A majority of the kids are dependent on poor single mothers. Bassuk bemoaned, “There’s a sort of a Third World emerging right in our backyard. You know, we talk about developing countries but look at what’s going on here”.