When children go homeless, we all pay a price

From "Facts on Trauma and Homeless Children," a 2005 report authored by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services:

• Homeless children are sick at twice the rate of other children. They suffer twice as many ear infections, have four times the rate of asthma, and have five times more diarrhea and stomach problems.
• Homeless children go hungry twice as often as non-homeless children.
• More than one-fifth of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems serious enough to require professional care, but less than one-third receive any treatment.
• Homeless children are twice as likely to repeat a grade compared to non-homeless children.
• Homeless children have twice the rate of learning disabilities and three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems of non-homeless children.
• Half of school-age homeless children experience anxiety, depression, or withdrawal compared to 18 percent of non-homeless children.
• By the time homeless children are eight years old, one in three has a major mental disorder.

Download the full six-page report here. (PDF)