Wonderful Post. I think this is the kind of thing that needs our attention right away. The children can't afford months of deliberation and arguing over nuances of legislation.

Good post; I saw this story. It was relevant to Kansas. In Wichita, the largest metropolis in Kansas at around a little over a half-a-million in population, there is a homelessness rate of 1:50 per kids enrolled in Wichita public schools, which has an SFY 08-09 enrollment of 49,146 students in 2008-09, an increase of 441 students from 2007-2008. See http://www.usd259.com/NR/exeres/0003B197-732C-4B04-98FF-A5D74F0D1162.htm

Here's the real startling news: of the 440 new enrollments this year (SFY08-09), 169 were homeless. Thirty of these kids are classified as "unaccompanied youths." Three-hundred are living in homeless shelters; 700 with family; and 75 in motels. The number of homeless kids was nearly 200 higher than thought by district officials.

See the full story in the Friday, 2009 Mar 06 Wichita Eagle at: http://www.kansas.com/212/story/723289.html

Don't think these issues aren't a Midwest issue; these issues certainly exist and are growing.

Gerald? How did all these poor little kids end up out in the street anyway? It wouldn't have been because of irresponsible dead-beat parenting, would it? Maybe one or both parents hooked on drugs or in jail? You say that they are really all our children, but I'll say that a large number of these poor kids have been victimized and abused by their parents, broken families and so on. But no, I can hear it coming, it's Reagan's fault, right? It's Bush's fault. Sure. Send me some charity information. I'll try to do my part to help kids that really need help through giving.

Greg, these are hard economic times. Your "giving" will not restore employment to the millions of Americans that are jobless. People have been losing their homes because they are losing their jobs, their incomes are being suppressed or reduced, or because they become ill and have no insurance. These children are victims of our poorly run economy that widens the gap between the super wealthy and the middle class. It is the middle class that is now falling into poverty. Your lack of compassion is not attractive.

Please don't do that here anymore. It almost abusive. Please remember that children read this blog. Children who need hope. Your comment above is not helpful to them, to us, or to anyone seeking solutions. Please tread carefully.

If you want to engage in a senseless racism and classism, do it somewhere else. If you want a street fight, go out on the street but don't bring your undocumented generalizations to this site. This is a site that poor children read. Your words are hurtful to them and I will make a formal complaint to management if you persist.

If you want an unfounded argument, without the use of facts, just grab a Coors and sit down in front of Fox News and yell at the tube. But don't do it here, Greg. Not here. That's not what this site is for.

Gerald wrote a blog post about facts. Greg, if you wish dispute that the cause of the new poverty class is the economy, then use facts. Otherwise, your comments are harmful to those poor who may (and do) read your words.

Don't do this anymore at our site.

Racism: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

I don't believe that Mr. Pedersen was displaying racism nor was he being harmful in any way. He was in no way talking down to American Americans, it is a statistical fact that African Americans rank lower in total income and higher in poverty rate. Mr. Pedersen was not belittling the African American community or anyone else, he was simply upset at the fact that this generation's lack of parenthood is, to put it simply, disgusting.

I happen to be very lucky living with two wonderful parents whom loved and cared for me all my life and plan on sending me to college next year. I cannot speak for others my age who are at a disadvantage, but the fact remains that children are being neglected because the debaucherous ways of their parents and this selfish lifestyle is dispicable. Until we realize and admit that it is the parents' fault and not the anyone else's, then we will remain in this current state.

Put simply, RACISM is prejudicial judgment, assumption, or treatment of a race of people.

In order to be racist or to speak with racism, a person must be speaking with prejudicial characterizations of people - that is, put simply, a racist person is PRE-JUDGING a group of people based on incomplete information, incorrect information or selected information that cannot be fairly apply to all members of the group or race.

Yes, Mr. Pedersen's remarks about the poor were racist.

Once again Ms. Thomason you missunderstand Mr. Pedersen's comment. You are now PRE-JUDGING Mr. Pedersen based on SELECTED INFORMATION, there is no way of you knowing weather he is racisit or not. He clearly has sympathy for ALL children who are raised in poverty and disgust to ALL "parents" who fail at parenting, and not just African Americans which you so quickly assume.

For the time being, lets take a pass on whether or not Mr. Pederson's remarks are racist. They are, extremely presumptious and based on untrue and unkind stereotypes.

The majority of poor people in the country are white, because the majority of the population is white (although that is changing).

Most poor people don't want to be poor. And the idea that all they have to do is 'pull themselves up by their own bootstraps' denies facts regarding the impact of concentrated poverty, public disinvestment in poor communities - including public schools - and that all of those things, among others, keep people poor.

K.J., I too had loving parents (who couldn't afford to send me to college by the way). I had a wonderful extended family of church members and neighbors, enhanced by friends and teachers and coaches, etc., etc. There are scores of kids who just don't have that. There are others who have loving parents, but they've missed some of the advantages your parents may have had, or they've had some negative experiences that your parents may have had, but have not been as fortunate as your parents have been to overcome them.

These people are not lazy, their not wicked. They haven't 'succeeded'...

The 'new' poor: the ones who can't put food on their tables or dress their children as well as they want, or find work, or who are in shelters or who come to food pantries like ours, were at one time just like your parents. They lost jobs, they got sick and had no insurance or were inadequately covered, they didn't have an opportunity to train for another career - its a long list of things that make them something else other than careless parents.

There are people who are irresponsible. But probably not as many as you think. And as one who has experienced poverty and know what its like to struggle to put food on the table, I sympathize with those who have similar struggles, much more than those who seem to take offense to their poverty...

Gerald, I assumed that the 1.5 million homeless children you spoke of are also without parents or adult supervision. That's the way I read into your article. Then I ask a legitimate question, put forth a couple of scenarios, make an offer to help some of these poor kids with a charity donation, and I get called racist. First time in my 51 yr. old life I've been labeled that.

Nora, I'll tell you what I told Mr. Britt - you don't know me. When it comes to people I am totally color blind. I only judge people on their character, not their race or financial status. Some of the richest people in the world are or were in poverty, if you know what I mean.

I just a nobody commenter, right? The contributing "authors" at this site when they write their articles are the ones who have to document their facts, statistics, and sources. I just try to use plain old common sense when I post a comment instead of boring everyone with numbers and links and graphs.

And by the way Nora, I hate Coors. I love Chardonnay. And if I feel like doing something stupid like yell at the TV, I'll put on MSNBC, not Fox News!

Reading these comments, I'm a bit perplexed by the statements of both Greg and K.J. A while ago I wrote a blog about the constructive debate between liberals and conservatives. But this isn't a constructive debate. Gerald made a post on the plight of homeless children and backed it up with statistics and referenced his sources, so that we could check the facts. Greg is making a blanket statement of homeless children based on some bad stereotypes of the poor. And in spite of what K.J. is writing, Greg's statements are not sympathetic to the poor children. Perpetuating stereotypes of poor people does a lot of harm to poor people and poor children.

If you want to see a constructive debate, read the letters of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two closer friends who disagreed in their political philosophies yet managed to discuss them in their letters. There are a lot of friendships like that, of political opposites who stayed friends and were able to debate civilly: Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neil; Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch; Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda.

One of the things that made those friendships possible, and that makes constructive debate possible, is a sense of respect for the opinions of those whom you disagree with. It seems from reading these comments that Gerald is showing a lot more respect for Greg's opinions than Greg is showing for Gerald's. There's a difference between a constructive debate and harassing different opinions.

The children that Gerald accounted for in his blog about homelessness are not without parents. They are not abandoned or orphaned - they are homeless. Though Gerald chose to begin his blog post by calling attention to the huge numbers of children that are homeless, as Gerald knows and as his sources indicate - the number of whole families that are looking for shelter is growing exponentially in this unforgiving economy.

I believe that Gerald was, by writing his blog post, trying to dispel the myths that the homeless are all mentally or physically disabled adults, but, in fact, whole families are begin made homeless in this economy through medical incidents that drain their bank accounts, loss of jobs, or loss of their opportunities in the job market - none of which is due to their own failings.

By calling attention to the numbers of children (who have homeless parents) that are homeless, I believe that Gerald was hoping that more of us would say, "There but the grace of God goeth I," and then more of us would band together to create real hope and opportunity for the unfortunate souls that are suffering in the economy that many of us have prospered in.

There are both winners and losers in any capitalistic society. Winners win on the backs of the losers. We would not have put up with this asymmetrical reward system if we had not also put in safeguards and safety nets to protect the so-called "losers" from suffering.

Could we live with ourselves by getting rich on the labor and strife of the lower class even as we watch them go hungry, go homeless or die from treatable illnesses because they had no money to see the doctor?

I pray that we are not that greedy and self-centered. I also pray that we will cease blaming the victims.

Gerald thank for sharing the statistics about child homelessness, family homelessness and how it is growing.

Angelo, your comment here is tremendous. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

Thank you Jerry. I don't mean to be putting Greg or K.J. down. But these comments actually do a lot to harm their cause as conservative Republicans.

My dad is registered as an independent, but he's fairly conservative and usually votes Republican. But he refuses to register as a Republican because he doesn't want to be associated with a lot of the rhetoric that comes from the Far Right.

I know conservatives who were mad when George W. called himself a "compassionate conservative" because it implied that regular conservatives were not compassionate to the poor.

When Greg and K.J. stereotype all poor parents as being a certain way, it reinforces the stereotype that many have that conservative Republicans are not very compassionate or understanding of the poor.

I commend Gerald for relaying information on how the federal government is trying to ease the suffering of homeless children. I'm sure there are conservative Republican ideas on how to help homeless families. Greg and K.J., however, haven't offered any in their comments.

I believe ammendments to the current educational system could fix the problems of poverty. The "stimulus" bill passed is disappointing to say the least, the amount of pork that it contained is astonishing along with the fact the Ms. Pelosi believes that we need yet another "stimulus" when the first has yet to begin it's implimentation. I am a classical economist and hate the current administration's high level of power within the economy, but I raise this comment to address my concern that with such a large amount of money going into act, why wasn't education taken into more consideration?

I look at "recovery.gov" and find that education is ranked 6th out of 8th. It trails "protecting the valunerable" which I take to be government hand outs to handicaped(if anyone else has a differnet connotation please fill me in). My theory as to why spending on education is so is because of it's failure to divulge immediate results. Because of the public's demand for immediate results, education is neglected when politians know they will not get re-elected when results are not given.

Because of this, children from all backgrounds suffer from poor education. When kids don't recieve a good education, they loose incentive to work and will drop out, completly unprepaired for the future that is in front of them thus contributing to the poveerty level. Improvements in education will help that generation be more prepared for life, but it will take time for these resulted to show.