THE PROBLEM

Homeless children represent the most vulnerable portion of Americans living in poverty. It creates gaps in cognitive skills for very young children.  So many children are dropping out of school for various reasons and lack basic skills, they are moving towards a life of poverty, under-employment, or low-wage employment. Child poverty directly threatens our nation’s future by putting children at greater risk of hunger and homelessness.  They are left vulnerable to abuse by others and are often subject to unhealthy situations that jeopardizes their health and ability to learn and fuels the intergenerational cycle of poverty. A great majority of these children have no guidance or roadmap showing them the steps needed to become self-sufficient, nor do not have a safe, secure or stable place to live.  

Each year, an estimated 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness, of which 700,000 are unaccompanied minors, meaning they are not part of a family or accompanied by a parent or guardian. On any given night, 41,000 unaccompanied youth ages 13-25 experience homelessness. (NCSL) We, at Luvthekidz Inc., believe that it is a national embarrassment that children who live in the US, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, are statistically the poorest age group in the United States.   

About 1 in 7 children—more than 10 million in total—were poor in 2019. Fifty percent of these children lived in extreme poverty at less than half the poverty level. Nearly, 3 in 4 poor children (71%) were children of color. The youngest children were most likely to be poor, with nearly 1 in 6 children under 5 living in poverty during the years of rapid brain development.  According to the American Psychological Association, children living in poverty are more likely to have behavioral problems, complete fewer years of education, and, as they grow up, tend to experience more years of unemployment.  

“I think that we are growing a Third World in our own back yard,” said Ellen L. Bassuk, founder and president of the National Center on Family Homelessness, an advocacy and research organization in Needham, Mass. “We look at developing countries, but we don’t look at our own country.”