NY Times: Surge in Homeless Children Strains School Districts

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: September 5, 2009


ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.

Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.

The instability can be ruinous to schooling, educators say, adding multiple moves and lost class time to the inherent distress of homelessness. And so in accord with federal law, the Buncombe County district, where Charity attends, provides special bus service to shelters, motels, doubled-up houses, trailer parks and RV campgrounds to help children stay in their familiar schools as the families move about.

Still, Charity said of her last semester, “I couldn’t go to sleep, I was worried about all the stuff,” and she often nodded off in class. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1&hp

is off base. The economy cannot improve until people have jobs that pay them a livable wage. It is not rocket science, it is basic stuff. People need jobs. Until they have work the economy will remain depressed. People cannot spend money they don't have.

There was some economic reporter on one of the TV channels yesterday talking about how until consumers start spending money on retail goods the economy will stay flat. He didn't mention jobs, he talked about how the big retailers are hurting due to virtually non-existent back-to-school sales and that until consumers start spending again it will be bleak. After listening to him with an open mouth I came to the conclusion he is nothing more than a shill for the retailers association. It seemed he was blaming consumers for not buying junk to keep the retailers afloat.

This just goes to show that there is no "free market" on the bottom end of the housing market. The rent is "whatever the market will bear", meaning about 1/3 of minimum wage for a month ($7.25 an hour times 176 work hours in a month times 1/3 = $425). Once the low end of the working class get accustomed to paying a third of their wage for a roof over their heads, the roof can be a shabby trailer that would be lucky to fetch $10,000 at auction. But that makes a healthy profit for the landlord, taking in $5,700 in rent on a $10,000 asset.
Ain't capitalism grand!

Only lately has it gotten larger. But make no mistake, the number of homeless children in our school system has been on a steady upswing for a long while.