There is no way to ease into the topic of homeless children in our community. You can only be blunt; no child should be without a consistent place to live. However, here we are with an estimated 54 Traverse City children who live without permanent shelter.
The Record-Eagle is focusing on people experiencing homelessness who live amongst us. There are many reasons adults lose their lodgings. But, morally, we cannot debate the origins of homelessness for children. We can’t ask, “Is it an economic problem or a substance abuse problem?” It’s just wrong to waste time and energy trying to parse out the why.
Simply put, whatever the reason these children are homeless, it is not their fault.
According to Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) Student Support Network Coordinator Katie Kubesh, Traverse City schools have 243 students who meet the federal guidelines as being homeless. That number, Kubesh says, “grows daily.”
But the 54 children identified by school officials as having no homes are the hardest hit and must sleep “in cars, or campers.”
Data available to TCAPS on homeless students shows the trend lines up with “a lack of affordable housing in the area,” says Kubesh.
Look further at their data and you see an even more depressing trend. Most of the homeless children in our community are second-generation homeless. We are not doing enough to stop the cycle. We have a chronic homeless problem. This at-risk population of kids is served by a network of the school system, community groups, and local churches knit together to intervene for provisions of daily meals at schools, bags of food on school breaks, hygiene kits, and showers upon arrival to school.
The numbers of homeless children in major metropolitan areas like New York and Philadelphia are in the tens of thousands. But in some ways, urban homeless children have a framework where getting to school is somewhat easier. When she networks with colleagues in larger cities, Kubesh says, “I am surprised to learn that school attendance records are much higher in urban schools. We have unsheltered kids in rural areas, and it can be very tough for them to get to school in the cold weather.”
Bus routes are run, and well-meaning administrators try to pinpoint and help the neediest. A warm school building with at least two daily meals positively impacts and helps support kids facing chaos in their outside lives.
Poverty in small towns and rural areas, combined with homelessness, is a very tough combination of isolation and lack of protection from the rough winter weather.
As you run through your grocery list, prepare your holiday cocktail, or say thanks this holiday season, remember that an outstanding community takes care of its own. Perhaps we can’t fix it all, but how about a better commitment to try? How about a commitment to those 54 kids?
Here’s more information from those who are trying already. Anyone interested in donating to the TCAPS Student Support Network (SSN) can visit the page at https://www.tcaps.net/programs/step/ or visit www.tcaps.net/donate to make a financial donation.