Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Models of Legal Advocacy to Implement the Educational Promise of the McKinney Act for Homeless Children and Youth

Abstract

INTRODUCTION|Imagine what it would be like to be a child and to lose your home-to be suddenly uprooted from the community where you have always lived, moved into a shelter full of strangers, and transferred abruptly to a different school with new teachers, classmates, and lesson plans. Now imagine changing schools five or six times in one year while your parent struggles to keep the family sheltered, fed, and clothed. For approximately 750,000 children nationwide, this devastating experience is a reality. Although wide disagreement exists about the number of homeless children in the United States, there is general agreement that families with children constitute the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. A recent report by the United States Conference of Mayors estimates that families constitute forty-three percent of the total homeless population...