Even here, seven-year-olds with no place to sleep

The most common age of a homeless person in this county is seven. When I was seven I was playing coach's pitch baseball, watching Sesame Street and eating three meals a day (assuming my parents could force me to eat breakfast). I certainly was not trying to find a roof for the night or searching for food on the streets.

Considering that New Jersey is the richest state (per capita) in the nation, I am proposing that seven-year-olds need not be homeless. I find it unsettling that in one of the wealthiest counties of the wealthiest state of the wealthiest nation, children are without a home.

One theory for why people become homeless rests on the assumption that in America everyone who works hard will share in the benefits of their labor and can thus provide for him or herself. Therefore, it follows that anyone who is homeless must not be trying. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 39 percent of the nation's homeless are children (guess they should have put in a little more effort), 22 percent are mentally ill (what were they thinking?), 20 percent work (not hard enough), 22 percent are escaping domestic violence (hey — life's tough) and about 30 percent have addictions (should have just said no).

Another theory for why people become homeless has to do with reality. With the most expensive rental housing market, New Jersey residents making minimum wage would have to work 125 hours a week to keep a basic two bedroom apartment. Even that workload does not guarantee security when one unexpected expense (car trouble, a child who gets sick, a building fire) could force families to choose between rent and food. New Jersey also has a shortage of drug treatment and mental health programs. In addition the Division of Youth and Family Services is so underfunded and poorly run that it has become national news.

Homefront (www.homefrontnj.org) is a Trenton-based organization that temporarily houses local homeless families in motels along U.S. Route 1. The motels are not the best places to live. They preclude playing outside, cooking, safety, or avoiding swarms of roaches. Even more shocking than the living conditions is the fact that 85 percent of Homefront families have at least one full-time working adult. Not many people would guess that the vast majority of Mercer County's homeless are working full-time, but then again not many people are aware of the 10 million-plus working poor (the majority of whom are white) in this country to begin with.

The bottom line is that there is not enough affordable housing. Government assistance helps to fill in the gaps for some families and individuals, but it is not enough. Waiting lists for affordable housing, Section Eight vouchers, and government housing are so oversubscribed that, across the country, they have stopped accepting names. On a local level, housing regulations and planning boards are favoring businesses and wealthier development like always (yes — economic development is vital, but it must be coupled with supporting the customers of those businesses). At the same time, social services nationwide (mental health, addiction services, job-training, healthcare, the public schools, family planning services) are being cut, withheld, and eliminated. The White House is now cultivating the biggest crop of diseased, despondent and desperate Americans ever.

It is worth the money to provide low-cost housing to low-income families. The return on the investment would certainly pay for itself. Is there any doubt that children who have homes do better in school than homeless children? Children need a place at home to study, a refrigerator for the next day's lunch, and an address for the report card to be mailed to.

The life choices of adults warrant another column, but regardless of any sort of practical or moral judgments against homeless parents, their children certainly do not deserve poverty, homelessness, and hunger. Not in this country. The American Dream is worth putting on a pedestal, but not at the expense of starving children.

Perhaps the government could take 0.1 percent of the budget to do whatever we are doing in Iraq to give shelter to all of the homeless seven-yearolds out there. Next year, maybe we could do the same for everyone who is six.

Robin Williams is a Wilson School major from Greensboro, N.C.