On this 233rd birthday weekend many of America’s youngest aren’t doing so well. One of the effects of the bursting economic bubbles, like so many firework chrysanthemums across the sky, is that children are increasingly being exposed to the worst this nation has to offer. The job losses, foreclosures, increased costs and decreased wages are putting kids out onto the streets. In my State of Arizona the number of school aged children now homeless has passed 25,000. That is an 18% increase over the last year. Not having shelter from the intense summer heat of the desert can be quite deadly, quite quickly.
According to this March 2009 report on national child homelessness, America’s Youngest Outcasts: State Report Card on Child Homelessness Arizona ranks 36th overall with a risk ranking of 45th. In numbers, this means “of the 933,000 children living in poverty in Arizona, one out of every twenty-five (4% ) are homeless.”
Flip below to find out about how many kids are homeless in your state and what you can do about it.