“I’m hungry, I’m cold, and I have nowhere to rest my head comfortably before school,” said any homeless kid in our nation’s capital. Unfortunately, kids in the United States aren’t going to receive a quality education. Instead, they cannot focus on school because they are thinking about their next home or meal. Because students can’t be successful without fundamental needs being met, schools need to reach out to youth homeless shelters that can provide the students with a place to sleep and extra school supplies. Food and shelter are necessary to sustain life; not focusing can cause students to earn horrible grades. Ultimately, all of this is not beneficial to them being able to get into a good college and have a better understanding of things that they need when they are adults. Kids are our future. Without their positive contributions, we won’t be able to have a positive impact on our future.
Over a million kids are homeless, and people are not doing enough to help them. Safe Supporting Learning states, “At the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, over 1.4 million students were homeless.” Kids won’t be able to focus at school if they are thinking about what they are going to eat or where they will go or live, which can cause a huge distraction. “Stand Up For Kids” states,” “Every day, 13 at-risk youth will die due to assault, illness, or suicide or trying to survive on the streets.” This illuminates that when kids are on the streets, they can die because of many reasons like assault, suicide, and many more, which can also have an impact on people’s learning ability. Youth won’t be able to have a bright future without this necessary education.
Schools providing housing for the youth can help to improve the educational outcomes for homeless children. The article “How Schools Serve Homeless Students” states, “Guidance for teachers who have homeless students emphasizes sensitivity and stability. Students may lose school supplies, so keeping extras in the classroom can be helpful.” Children are afraid that they might lose all their supplies because of being on the streets. This indicates that teachers or school staff should keep extra supplies for students.
Ultimately, this problem is very vital to our community. If kids can’t help our future, we won’t have a better life. Kids also are our population rate, and if they die because of homelessness, is no one going to do something about it? Is anyone even going to care? Because students can’t succeed without fundamental needs being met, schools and youth housing programs need to supply homeless students with homes and extra school supplies.
