What do we want for our community?

When United Way asked the citizens of the tri-county area what they wanted for their community, the top 10 concerns of the citizens were less crime and more safe neighborhoods, affordable health care, reduced youth violence, less drug and alcohol abuse, jobs that pay a living wage, affordable housing, lower high school dropout rates, less family and domestic violence, less hunger and homelessness, and affordable child care. Wow, an overwhelming list; what can any one of us do to solve these tough problems? It makes one want to turn a blind eye and just deal with the stress of our daily lives.

But, believe it or not, there is much each of us can do to lessen the impact of these very real problems. How, you ask? Follow along. One feeder stream to these problems is the staggering rate of homeless children in our community. Since the economy collapsed in 2008, Florida – and Seminole County – has seen rising numbers of impoverished, hungry, homeless children. Since 2006 the number of Florida’s homeless school-aged children has risen from 30,878 to 63,835 in 2012 according to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.

Florida is second in the nation for the highest foreclosure rate in the country according to a CBS news piece. These homeless are not strangers; they are our neighbors. One out of four children goes hungry in our communities nationally. Seminole County Public School reports we have 1,461 homeless elementary children, 416 homeless middle school children, but only 227 homeless high school children. Why? The teenagers drop out to help feed their families. The day they do drop out, they become the poor-in-training for the next generation of homelessness.

At the end of the school year, more than 2,250 homeless school-aged children were reported in Seminole County. Orange County has more than 7,200 homeless children. The ability of these children to be successful in education is severely impaired. Homeless children on average are 1.6 grades behind other children. The odds of having learning disabilities and developmental disabilities soar because stress interferes with their ability to learn critical skills at critical stages of their development. It increases the odds of these children having developmental delays and learning disabilities by 400 percent. It increases the children’s chances of being emotionally disturbed by 300 percent. These issues can affect the schools’ performance on FCAT scores, contribute to violence in the schools and in the community, and affect juvenile delinquent crime rates.

Who are these homeless children and where are they? Do you see them or are they invisible in our community? Most of them – 58 percent – are younger than age 8. Why are they homeless? Many families become homeless because they are fleeing domestically violent homes. Single mothers have been priced out of existence by poor living wages, unaffordable housing and unaffordable child care. With divorce rates of 50 percent in our country, how does a single mother or father make sufficient money to provide housing and child care along with the other monthly bills? All of us find increasing demands in the work place to become lifelong learners who stay on top of technological changes in our job fields. How can a single parent accomplish that and the demands of daily life?

So, what do we do about these problems that feed other problems and affect us all? We can make a difference in changing these problems that seem too overwhelming to tackle. First, we work together, put our heads together, build capacity and begin problem solving one broken spoke of the wheel at a time.

The Early Learning Coalition and fellow agencies are working to get affordable childcare for homeless families. There is a waiting list of more than 2,000 children for subsidized childcare. Would childcare centers volunteer to donate some free childcare so the parents can look for work or keep their job while getting self-sufficient? Would the church childcare centers call for volunteers to provide childcare so they could accept homeless children for job-hunting parents? Would after-school child care providers allow people to volunteer so they could accept these children?

The Seminole County non-profit agencies, businesses and faith-based community have done a commendable job in creating food pantries in 54 schools, and the Red Bag Program (RedBagSeminole.org) distributes food to feed these children and their parents over the weekend. This has lowered the number of children coming in with headaches and stomach aches from going hungry all weekend. Would you donate food to your school for the homeless or to the Red Bag program at your church or civic organization? Would you donate new tee shirts, jeans, shoes, hygiene supplies, laundry soap to Families in Transition (seminolehomelesskids.org)? This program within Seminole County Public Schools works toward ensuring that children’s basic needs are met. Would your school’s Parent Teacher Association host a collection drive for the homeless?

Does your company have a job opening for a homeless parent? Could you donate a new crockpot to the Northland Church Family Advocacy Program (FamilyAdvocacyOffice.com) for a family in a hotel room to eat instead of at the gas station? Would you sign up to be a Dividend at Seminole County Public Schools to tutor a homeless child so they can catch up and be successful?

You can package up a cake mix and a can of frosting or make a birthday card, give it to the guidance counselor at your child’s school. Give last year’s prom dress to the high school guidance counselor to give to a homeless child desiring to go to the prom. If you can spare 10 hours a month, become a volunteer advocate at Northland Church’s Family Advocacy Office to help connect homeless families with school-aged children to social service providers. Training is included in the orientation process.

Dwight Eisenhower had a favorite quote: “The ills of the world would be greatly reduced if a child knew he was indispensable.” Seminole County has more than 2,200 school–aged children who must not be disposed of or abandoned. You have skills. They are all needed. Not only is each of these children indispensable, so are you. To find out more ways to help, call the Families in Transition office at 407-746-8518 or visit them at SeminoleHomelessKids.org