Most people take the luxury of having a home for granted. The reality is that not every one is lucky enough to have a roof over their head every night. More than half of all homeless children
are under the age of six and not yet in school and many homeless kids do not attend school at all.
They roam the streets night after night, moving from place to place in search of food and shelter,
lacking medical attention and education. There are approximately 16,000 homeless children
living in the streets of Orange County. Both Isaiah House and Costa Mesa Inn give shelter to these children. Funding comes mostly from private donors. Project Hope School is a school that
teaches 55 homeless children and provides them with clothes and school materials. This progressive school not only educates the children, but provides food, clothing, structure and a shot at a better future. Costa Mesa Inn houses families and children 9 days old to 16yrs. old. They provide tutoring, wraparoundservices and counseling for their homeless children.
Single mothers head about 85% of homeless families, usually comprising a young mother and two
young children. This young homeless family is usually confronted with stressful and often traumatic events every day. According to Paul, at the Costa Mesa Inn, it is common to see young
mothers "hook up" with feared gang leaders in order to receive protection from them. Unfortunately, the reality is that these homeless women become on the receiving end of the
violence. The men that they choose to protect them become their aggressors and abuse the women and their children.
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posted by annec07.a@gmail.com
post by anne cona
The reason we don't see homelessness in Orange County is because these individuals don't necessary roam the streets (some do), instead they have to resort to finding inexpensive housing for shelter. Such places could be motels, emergency shelters that are few in number, or subletting a room in someone else's home. This unique quality about our county's homeless community makes it appear as a trivial matter to the general populace. According to Dwight Smith from the Isiah House, an emergency shelter in Santa Ana, Orange County's populuatin is the second largest in the countr,y next to Detroit, and yet we receive nothing in government aid to resolve the matter. Rather than progress with finding solutions to break down barriers to help these people, our legislators would rather utilize their time in office to "study" the matter. What we really need from these ineffective politicians is change if we ever expect to help these needy individuals.
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