Hard times generation: homeless kids

[Charleston Chew]

Run time: 13:34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK_RnxYdrqU   Posted on YouTube: March 06, 2011 By YouTube Member: CBSNewsOnline Views on YouTube: 6411   Posted on DU: March 09, 2011 By DU Member: Charleston Chew Views on DU: 438

 
CBSNewsOnline on Mar 6, 2011

For some children, socializing and learning are being cruelly complicated by homelessness, as Scott Pelley reports from Florida, where school buses now stop at motels for children who've lost their homes.
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Homeless children: the hard times generation
Scott Pelley reports on the growing number of children who are falling victim to the financial crisis.

(CBS News) Unemployment improved a bit last month but it is still nearly nine percent and the trouble is job creation is so slow, it will be years before we get back the seven and a half million jobs lost in the Great Recession. American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives.

One of the consequences of the recession that you don't hear a lot about is the record number of children descending into poverty.

The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25 percent. Those children would be the largest American generation to be raised in hard times since the Great Depression.

In Seminole County, near Orlando, Fla., so many kids have lost their homes that school busses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/06/60minutes/main20038927.shtml
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[Charleston Chew]

1. Republicans to America: Poor Kids Don't Have Enough Pain

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SamSeder on Mar 8, 2011

This weekend, "60 Minutes" aired a special on the record number of children falling into poverty due to the recent recession.

Taking a closer look at Florida in particular, the segment focuses on several families who never thought they would be homeless, and the children who perhaps suffer the greatest burden, growing up without a stable dwelling and sometimes going hungry.

Several children are interviewed. Two of the kids describe sneaking into a Wal-Mart bathroom to use the sinks and to clean up before school. One child says she feels that her family's poverty is her fault because her parents have to support her.

Some kids are living with neighbors, some in cars and vans, others in motels. Near Orlando, on the road to Disney World, there are 67 motels that house about 500 homeless kids.

According to CBS and the U.S. Census, 14 million children throughout the nation lived in poverty before the recession hit, and now that number is 16 million -- a 2-million person rise in two years. via -- Lori Kozlowski L.A. Times
twitter.com/lorikozlowski

http://majority.fm/2011/03/08/tuesday-march-8-2011/
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[Lynx]

2. How are these kids going to learn anything

if they don't have enough to eat? This is shocking and sickening.

[cutlassmama]

3. And we're the most prosperous country in the world? This is beyond

sad.

[jwirr]

4. My grandson, his wife and their two children are staying in a small

hotel room for a couple of months while their home is being remodeled. They have only been there 3 days and the little 18 month old boy is going crazy. No where to play, has to be still, too many people in one room and no home cooked meals. I cannot imagine raising children for any length of time in that kind of situation.

Every city has empty houses setting all over the place and children living like this. No right.

[Charleston Chew]

5. Making Fortune on Poverty: JP Morgan's Big Food Stamp Business

While most Americans are struggling hard to overcome the hardships of the recession, the profits of national banks continue to rise. JP Morgan is among those cashing-in ... and it's a contract to process food stamp payments that's helping it on its way. RT's Maria Portnaya found out how the rich benefit off the back of the poor.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x555040

[Charleston Chew]

6. Food Prices Rise to 'Dangerous Levels

If the saying is - 'you are what you eat' - what are you if you have nothing to eat? That may be the predicament facing tens of millions of people in developing countries after a 15 percent food price index increase - a rise the World Bank says hits 'dangerous levels'.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x556286

[PA Democrat]

7. How well do kids who live in constant fear and hunger do in school?

Should we blame teachers for the failings of our society as a whole to nurture children and enable them to receive the full benefits of an education?

When kids drop out to work to help with family finances because of this "profits over people" economy how is it the teachers' faults?