Over four million KIDS are on the streets, unaccompanied by an adult, in the U.S. each year. At least a million kids either couch-surf at friends’ homes or sleep on the streets every night. Why don’t we see them? We see the adults loitering, sleeping, or asking for hand-outs, but why not the kids?
Because they try to melt into the population. They hide in plain sight, maybe attending school regularly and/or working at low-paying jobs. They try hard to be invisible. They want to be invisible so they can avoid the shame and stigma associated with homelessness.
We must recognize that the homeless are not just the drunks, the dirty scavengers, the beggars on the street corners. The problem is much larger than that. It’s the adults hiding in plain sight. And it’s the kids. The kids.