The American society has an estimated population of 1.5 million children in being homeless and lacking shelter, healthcare or education. These statistics are detrimental and shows that the government is failing in provision of services and thus undermining the liberties of the US citizens who lack housing. The HEARTS was established as an action plan towards addressing homelessness. The plan based its actions on six areas of the project development. These are housing, public policy, evaluation, services, education and collaboration with economic partners. The plan directs its efforts and resource base towards housing and serving the chronically most homeless groupings in the society. The Act is an extension of McKiney-Vento Act “No child Left Behind” which was signed to law by the former US president George W. Bush in 2001. The Act advocated for the rights of education of the homeless US children. As in accordance to this Act, the homeless children incorporate those that are being doubled up by members of other families and those that stay in motels (Zlotnick, 2009). The Act increased the demand for schools to offer services to the homeless children without any recognized dispute or segregation; these services included transport services and liaison for the homeless and generally working to the interest of these children.
The extension of the McKinney-Vento Act, the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (HEARTH) was formed and pushed to passage in 2009. This was promising and since then the Act has proved significant since its assistance is accountable. The piece of legislation being passed to law in 2009 has seen the US communities and the Federal government not only assisting the homeless children but also making significant attempts to addressing effectively the overarching issues of homelessness (Assistance, 2009).
Additionally the Act expanded the definition of the homeless accommodating adults living in motels and those that are doubled up by members of other families. This has the led to the rapid re-housing more specifically for families (Davis, 2012). The resultant benefit is that more children are being raised up in a stable secure life supporting environment.
The Act has also increased the funding of the projects and programs directed at helping the homeless. In addition to this, the Act has provided legal grounds for power shifting to the local organizations giving them chance to make effective sound evidential decisions that are geared towards serving better their homeless community in need. In an attempt to respond to the concerns of the homeless, the HEARTH Act has increased the funding directed towards schools and also expanded family services thus making it possible for children and their parent to dwell in transnational housing programs and emergency shelter. This will considerably improve the lives of young children and their families hence guaranteeing them education (Berg, 2013).
The Act has directed the funding directed towards serving the homeless to non-profit and governmental organizations that are dedicated to serving the homeless in meeting their education expenses. These are mostly the charity organizations. The Act also makes specifications on the funding for prevention of homelessness, and facilitation of educational and school programs, more low-income housing for families, and the children nutrition programs in addition to many others (Assistance, 2009). This has increased accountability in terms of use of the budgeted funds allocated for homeless groups in the community. This is made ease as mismanagement and frauds are accountably prevented and made ease to trace since the directives of funding is made clear to all stakeholders. The way in which the stimulus work has given hope for the radical groups in America has they attempt to eradicate homelessness in the streets of America. The stimulus is proving to be in the move of substantially providing a widespread answer to this problem of homelessness.
Since the Act is a legal issue which is supported by the local, state and federal organizations, it has assisted in battling homelessness from grassroots to the governmental level. This has helped in addressing the individual needs of the homeless people as well as meeting the needs of the state population as a whole. The Act has also provided legal grounds for expansion of the housing voucher program. This has been helpful in that it gives parents chances of securing better places for their families and thus giving their children safe and secure conditions for living, education and the general development. The program has also brought with it the increase in childcare vouchers. This has ensured that American youth are guaranteed adequate education thus promising the homeless children a future out of the prevalent poverty that is pushing them into streets (Culhane, 2013).
When a child is homeless his or her education is affected. Children that are homeless have poor health and well being. They have high chances of health risk than children with homes. The increased amount of risk and poor feeding habits leads to dangerous illness which may not be curable When the mother is also undernourished the children are also affected. The children born may be undernourished as such. When an undernourished child is born it indicates that the mother was undernourished. She might be suffering from poverty, abusive substances and even poor prenatal care. A homeless child suffers from psychological torture as compared to a child who has a home. This is because a child who is homeless tends to focus more on what they will eat. This undermines their level of thinking and that child’s education is affected. For proper development of a child’s brain they need to have proper nutrition at their early stage. If they lack nutrition at early stage of their life they will affect their psychology and thus retarded mental growth. This eventually affects the child’s education
The youths are not seriously considered by the Act. It discriminates the youth economically and socially. The Act mostly focuses on the children and adults only. Although the homeless Act fights for housing and settlements of people, youths are not factored in this program. The program considers youths as not young to fall under the category of children. Youths who might not be having guidance or parents are the wants who suffer most. Such youths face neglect, abuse and homeless.
The youths cannot receive shelter, as they are considered too old for the shelter and too young for their independents. The paper does not clearly define where a youth belongs because it considers them young to be independent and older than the age of a child. This affects their education.
The youths also cannot get houses from be children housing as they are considered minor. During issuance of houses to children, youths are not considered as they as no longer in the age bracket of children. Therefore, youths are left just hanging in between adults and children. This has a profound effect on the youths’ education. The youth is affected psychologically. As the youth think about the lack of their homes, they are psychologically tortured. This affects the youth’s education as they tend to think about home rather than about education. The problem can is solved by the introduction of more housing programs which take into consideration all people including the youth. Landlords for example can develop more housing to settled more families.
The Act also does not factor in youths in their programs. They are not given opportunity to give their ideas. The youths might be having good ideas and energy but the act discriminates them and thus they are rendered useless in the community’s activities. The act is bias as it discriminates youth. Youths are not factored into the development systemic system by such an Act. Youths who might be homeless will continue suffering. This is because they do not have a say as they are not factored in the Act. The Act is bias in that it does not address the problems faced by the youths. These problems could include homelessness, parentless and some even suffer from abuses. After losing their parents they do not have dependants they thus receive abuses from the community members. Their ages make them to be discriminated by the Act. Due to their age they cannot either be in the line of children or in the line of adult. This is a failure of the paper not addressing the needs of youth and thus this failure affect the youth’s education.
Considering the wider perspective of homelessness and poverty in the United States of America, the life of child is true testimony of the whole picture that is prevalent. An examination of the living condition of street children, the unmistakable effects of poverty prevail. There exist various characteristics of homelessness and its companion, poverty; there is unsafe environmental condition, malnutrition, psychological and emotional distress, inadequate education and hunger. These symptoms are widely evident with the greater population of the people without homes. Without significant intervention, increase rate of graduation and increased exposure to resources there is a possibility that a homeless American child will grow an adult homeless American. If the HEARTH Act will be implemented and supported by the locals, the state and government, the future of homeless and other American children is determined. This is true on the grounds that despite the few years that HEARTH Act has been in place, tremendous changes in terms of driving poverty and homelessness out of America has shown positive progress. With advanced effective implementation of the Act and increased government action in addition to the integration of the local community into the all issue, then the existing problem of homelessness can be something of the past in a few years to come. HEARTH has proved this through its attempt to address on basic education, basic nutrition, basic rights as citizens of the United States, and basic social services.
References
Assistance, H. E. Rapid Transition to Housing Act. (2009). In United States Congress, S (Vol. 808).
Assistance, H. E. Rapid Transition to Housing Act 2009 (PL 111-222), Division B, Homelessness Reform, Sec. 896-32.
Berg, S. (2013). The HEARTH Act. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 15(1).
Culhane, D. P., Kane, V., & Johnston, M. (2013). Homelessness Research: Shaping Policy and Practice, Now and Into the Future. American journal of public health, (0), e1-e3.
Davis, T. H., & Lane, T. S. (2012). Rapid Re-Housing of Families Experiencing Homelessness in Massachusetts: Maintaining Housing Stability.
Zlotnick, C. (2009). What research tells us about the intersecting streams of homelessness and foster care. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 79(3), 319-325.
