There are too many homeless children in Lexington. Here’s how to change that. | Opinion

For 24 years the Catholic Action Center has been blessed to be a grassroots community-driven outreach to those who are experiencing homelessness in our community. We have witnessed the devastation of mind, body and spirit that having no place to call home creates: the fear, loneliness, isolation, suffering. We also have witnessed our community respond to the call to create safe places, provide food, provide supplies, fund shelters and volunteer time to efforts that keep our brothers and sisters safe during their time of need.

Now we are facing the most critical of all needs: the crisis of our Fayette County Public School children who are living in that world of homelessness. The FCPS McKinney-Vento report as of Sept. 25 showed 453 students homeless. That number is growing at an alarming rate as the self-reporting of homelessness in the schools takes time for the children or parents to overcome their shame and fear in order to trust the system by admitting their situation. Our community has assumed that the Salvation Army Family Shelter or Arbor Youth Shelter takes care of all the families with children or the unaccompanied children who are without housing. The reality is that the Salvation Army has been full since late spring and families with children have nowhere to turn with winter coming.

We all lived through the unprecedented time of the pandemic: the uncertainty, the rising costs of food and shelter, the unknown becoming the normal. These children have lived through the uncertain time too and are now living the devastation of homelessness through no fault of their own.

If a tornado, flood, or natural disaster occurred and the news reported that 453 Lexington children and their families were left without homes, we know that our community would rise up IMMEDIATELY and provide what was needed for their health and safety. Now is the time, Lexington, to come forth as a community and put the resources needed to solve this crisis—and we can. Emergency transitional housing is the first step for the children to be safely housed as they continue with their education.

The McKinney-Vento Program is a federal program that surrounds the students with the needed services as they struggle with homelessness. However, the McKinney-Vento Program does not have funding for emergency shelter or transitional housing. With all the government COVID funding for emergency transitional hotel rooms gone and very few programs available for these families to seek temporary emergency housing as they find permanent solutions, an effort has been initiated to address the immediate needs of the children in our FCPS: the Give Kids A Home Initiative. GKAH is a community effort to raise funds that will be available to the McKinney-Vento Program to insure our Fayette County Public School children are housed. All donations are tax deductible and there are no administrative costs. All funds go to giving our children a place to call home. We’ve already raised more than $20,000, but we can do more.

As Frederick Douglas said: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

We are in a crisis that has a solution: let’s give kids a home and give kids a chance. Let’s not allow our children to be broken by homelessness.

To give go to: https://www.catholicactioncenter.net/give-kids-a-home

Ginny Ramsey is the Director and Co-Founder Catholic Action Center.

This story was originally published October 5, 2023 at 10:36 AM.