That's probably a different country so don't worry about it
According to
new data released of the 2014 school year by the Department of Education, the number of children without a home, in the public school system, increased to 1.36 million. This is about twice as many homeless children as
was reported in 2008.
The latest homeless count, an 8 percent increase over the 2012-2013 school year, is a sign that many families continue to struggle financially even as the economy recovers from the housing collapse of 2008. And it offers a glimpse of the growing challenges that public schools face nationwide as they seek to educate an increasing number of low-income children.
The impact is profound on public schools, which struggle to try to address the needs of homeless children. Teachers often find themselves working not only to help children learn but also to clothe them, keep them clean and counsel them through problems — including stress and trauma — that interfere with classroom progress.
This means that at least 3 percent of American public school kids are homeless.
California, the most populous state, had the largest number of homeless children: more than 310,000, or 23 percent of the national total.
It was followed in descending order by New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Washington, Kentucky and Missouri. The state with the smallest total was Rhode Island, which reported 1,020 homeless students.
The recession has seen an increase but, unlike the financial community, federal funding hasn't exactly been as generous.
Many schools receive federal funds meant to help connect homeless students with support services. But that federal funding has not kept pace with the increasing need: In fiscal 2006, the Department of Education distributed $61.8 million for homeless youth programs. It had fallen slightly to $61.7 million by 2013, then increased slightly to $65 million in 2014.
To put that into perspective, let's pretend that since 2006 the federal government, Democrats and Republicans, have earmarked $65 million a year (the most spent in one year of that time span) for the Department of Education to use for this very problem. That would amount to a total of $585 billion dollars. That seems like quite a bit of money. But we have been in a recession. Belts have been tightened. Wars need to be fought. You can wander over
here to wonder about how much the financial bailout cost; and you can mosey on over
here to think about the costs of our wars on terrorism or whatever those wars are called now.