LITTLE ROCK — There are over 1.5 million homeless children in the United States. Many of them live without competent supervision, relying on older street kids to keep them safe. They will be exposed to instability and abuse, they will experiment with drugs, they will beat and be beaten, and on any given day 13 will die.
The statistics are so harrowing that most people regard the problem as hopeless, simply too big to deal with. But there is something positive to think about: Even in today’s hard economic times, we as a nation are making progress against homelessness.
The claim may be difficult to believe, given the overwhelming statistics to the contrary. It is challenging to collect census data on a nearly invisible population, but according to the Urban Institute, there are around 3.5 million homeless Americans with another 37 million so impoverishedthat they’re ever on the cusp of homelessness.
Homelesschildrenamerica.org claims that Arkansas alone harbors nearly 19,000 children living without permanent residence, nearly half of them under age 6. That we knowthese figures is actually a good sign. It means that we are gaining a more realistic grasp on the problem. But knowing about an issue is not the same as doing something about it.
Many organizations are tackling the issue on the national and local levels. Some organizations, such as the Salvation Army, provide numerous services including shelters, prisoner and drug and alcohol rehabilitation, education and employment opportunities. Stand Up for Children provides similar services, but focuses exclusively on the youth. Its key strategy is to break thecycle that has a statistically significant chance of producing the next generation of homeless children. Then there are the YMCA and YWCA, both of which provide free day care to lowincome families, which can allow single parents to realistically pursue employment.
In Arkansas, we have over 100 registered shelters. The Haven of Northeast Arkansas, for instance, shelters, educates and provides legal advocacy to victims of domestic violence. The Bethlehem House of Faulkner County operates under the motto, “Offering a hand up, not a hand out.” Like many organizations combating homelessness, they focus on dealing with the problems that contribute to homelessness and not just the symptoms, e.g., hunger, and the need for a warm place to sleep. And numerous charitable programs are carried out by local church groups to help their immediate communities.
The true champion in the battle against homelessness is the Wal-Mart Foundation, which has donated over 90 million pounds of food to shelters and soup kitchens across the country and almost half a billion dollars to more than 100,000 charitable organizations that improve the quality of lives.
There are many lights along the road for that invisible 1 percent of the American population. Those who strive to help them see progress every day, but it’s not enough. There is always a shortage of time, resources and money. And volunteers.
As long as there is deficiency, there will be cracks through which people fall. There will be corners cut. People will fail to uphold the noble intentions of their organizations. In January, The New York Times ran an exposé about stores that were physically destroying unsalable clothing instead of donating them to local centers. The discarded shirts and coats had actually been slashed with razor knives, rendering them unusable to the city’s 39,000 registered homelesspopulation.
We live in a world of our own making. We can weigh these grim statistics and see only the darkness along the roadside or we can behold the light of those who are doing something about it and add to it our own spark.
Talk to your local church groups, your schools, and see if there are programs in place to generate awarenessof the homeless people in your area. If none exists, offer to start one. Even something as simple as a canned food drive at work can make a difference.
Do a little homework. Find out what charitable organizations the businesses you patronize support. If they have no charitable mandate, initiate a dialogue. Speak to your representatives. Find out what kind of services are available in your state. Be creative.
Free-lance writer E. Steven Newby lives in Leslie.
Editorial, Pages 19 on 06/26/2010