Jesus Wept
I thought seriously about skipping any substantive blogging for today, it being Christmas and all, but I am a creature of habit, so I made my weekly trek to Watching America. There wasn't much to grab me until I did a little nosing around. This is what I found.
From Austria's Die Presse:
Every 45th American child was considered homeless in the past year; 42 percent of them were six years old or younger. A study of the National Center for Homeless Families arrived at this result, reporting the number of homeless children for each of the 50 states separately.
According to the study, the U.S. West and Southeast are the hardest hit: The negative frontrunners are the currently Republican-governed states Alabama, Mississippi, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Democratic-governed California and Arkansas. Every second homeless child is believed to live in one of these states.
The study spotlighted a period of four years and determined that even 2006, the “Year of Natural Disasters,” did not represent the high point of homelessness for children. At that point there were already 1.5 million U.S. children with no roof over their heads as a consequence of hurricanes Katrina and Rita; this number increased to 1.6 million in 2010. According to the study, the cause of the rise is the incipient recession in 2007. The conclusion is drawn that human-made disasters like the economic crisis can have a greater negative impact than natural disasters.
Further results of the study see a direct connection between the diminished ability of children to learn and the constant, traumatic experiences caused by homelessness. Not only do homeless children suffer from hunger, poor health and psychological problems, they also perform more poorly than “normal” children in reading and writing.
Merry Christmas.
While toys donated to the local Fire Departments and to the Marine Corps may take the edge of homelessness off on Christmas Day, those toys are thin soup come December 26th and the days and weeks thereafter.
There's something wrong with this nation, something dreadfully wrong.
From Austria's Die Presse:
Every 45th American child was considered homeless in the past year; 42 percent of them were six years old or younger. A study of the National Center for Homeless Families arrived at this result, reporting the number of homeless children for each of the 50 states separately.
According to the study, the U.S. West and Southeast are the hardest hit: The negative frontrunners are the currently Republican-governed states Alabama, Mississippi, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Democratic-governed California and Arkansas. Every second homeless child is believed to live in one of these states.
The study spotlighted a period of four years and determined that even 2006, the “Year of Natural Disasters,” did not represent the high point of homelessness for children. At that point there were already 1.5 million U.S. children with no roof over their heads as a consequence of hurricanes Katrina and Rita; this number increased to 1.6 million in 2010. According to the study, the cause of the rise is the incipient recession in 2007. The conclusion is drawn that human-made disasters like the economic crisis can have a greater negative impact than natural disasters.
Further results of the study see a direct connection between the diminished ability of children to learn and the constant, traumatic experiences caused by homelessness. Not only do homeless children suffer from hunger, poor health and psychological problems, they also perform more poorly than “normal” children in reading and writing.
Merry Christmas.
While toys donated to the local Fire Departments and to the Marine Corps may take the edge of homelessness off on Christmas Day, those toys are thin soup come December 26th and the days and weeks thereafter.
There's something wrong with this nation, something dreadfully wrong.
Labels: Caritas
posted by Diane at 11:00 AM
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