by James Glaser
November 24, 2004

Now I don't want to spoil your appetite, but tomorrow when you are pigging out at your family feast, along with most Americans, it might be nice if you were thankful for the fact that you are not one of the estimated 3.5 million homeless Americans living on the street, in a vehicle, or in some cave, maybe under a bridge or in a cardboard box.

As you look around your table, count your blessings because your kids are not numbered in the 1.35 million children who live on the streets too. It is impossible to count the number of homeless people with 100% accuracy, but the Department of Education tells us that over 400,000 homeless children go to public schools. It is the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic research organization which came up with the 3.5 million number for homelessness in the US.

Some people tell me that those homeless people choose to live that way or they are just lazy, but I don't think that is true. Many of the singles out there have mental problems and most States have closed their facilities to help these people in a residential setting. That forces people who in the past would have been housed in State Hospitals, to fend for themselves,

70% of homeless mothers placed in foster care as children, have at least one of their own children in foster care. So this homelessness can become a generational thing. 66% of those same homeless mothers were violently abused as kids and 63% of them have been violently abused by a male partner. When you start figuring out what kind of life these people have had, it gets hard to throw that first stone.

Almost half of the mothers on the street with children, left home because of domestic violence and it should be no surprise that homeless kids get sick more often than those who have a place to live.

It is hard to even imagine what kind of attitude a child would develop living on the street. To say that those kids get "hard' would be a gross understatement. They live with lots of violence and hopelessness. Cold and hunger can make a life of crime look pretty good. Even if you get caught, you can look at three squares a day and a warm place to sleep. Jail or prison can be safer that living on the street of some big American city.

With the money we are spending on rebuilding Iraq, we could house every homeless American and give those million plus children a chance at the American Dream.

I don't know and I don't think anybody else does either, how many of those kids, and they are "our" kids, how many of them will end up in prison or how many of them will have psychological problems, because they were raped or physically abused growing up, but the number would probably stun us. The costs in future tax dollars will be incredible.

Sure I know there are people who choose to live on the streets and the Veterans Administration tells us that over 275,000 veterans make the choice to do that every night, but children don't have any option, they can't make a choice.

Neither can the tens of thousands of women with children who are escaping physical, sexual, and mental abuse from a male partner. Those women have to protect their children and living on the streets can be safer than home with an abusive spouse.

What can we do? As individuals not much except support your local food shelf and help out when you can at soup kitchens and many churches do that now. Maybe next time you talk or write to your "Christian" politician you could mention this problem. You might even say or write, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."