Friday, December 23, 2011

Another face of the U.S. recession: homeless children

As her moth­er sat in a home­less shelter in downtown Miami, talking about her eco­nom­ic struggles and loss of faith in the U.S. po­lit­ical system, 3-year-old Aeisha Touray blurted out what sounded like a new slogan for the Occu­py Wall Street protest move­ment.

"How dare you!" the girl said abruptly as she nudged a toy car across a confer­ence room table at the Chapman Partner­ship shelter in Miami's tough and predom­inantly black Overtown neighbor­hood.

There was no telling what Aeisha was think­ing as her 32-year-old moth­er, Nairkahe Touray, spoke of how she burned through her savings and wound up living in a car with five of her eight chil­dren earli­er this year.

But how dare you indeed? How does anyone explain to kids like Aeisha and count­less oth­ers how they wound up home­less in the world's richest nation?

www.ongo.com/v/2619528/10586/32EA3B8072364161/another-face-of-the-us-recession-homeless-children