Blog Extra Credit: "The New Face of Homelessness"

The effects of homelessness take an extreme toll on everyone in the family who is involved. The article "The New Face of Homelessness" by Kelly Cobiella focuses these effects on the children of these families. The children she interviews are all in school. School itself, for a child, is an obstacle to overcome. Especially in middle and high school the average child is constantly teased, and gains many insecurities about themselves. This alone can easily cause depression, which affects their school work and who they become friends with.

            This fact does not include any hardships that these children face in their home life. To add this factor of homelessness, this will just add to the schooling of these children. Breanna Martin, a 13-year-old claimed “I have like no clothes anymore because I lost them all. So basically I wear whatever I can find. I’m wearing right now my grandpa’s shirt and my grandma’s pants.” For a middle school student, image and social status is all that is thought about. They constantly judge and are judged throughout the day. This creates insecurities that can psychologically affect children at the deepest level. These children who already start in poverty; no clothes and no money does not help matters at the least.

           

Another issue that was not mentioned as much is in this article is hunger. With the little to no income these families produce, food is going to be their number one priority to spend their money on.  Many who are involved in this situation are not eating as well as they need to. It is good that public schools try to help in this matter by providing free lunches for those who did not bring one or do not have money. Though these lunches are normally just a simple P.B.J.