Sen. John Kerry Introduces Reconnecting Youth To Prevent Homelessness Act

This week, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced the Reconnecting Youth to Prevent Homelessness Act to protect children in foster care from ending up on the streets. The bill features a section dedicated to protecting and providing support to LGBT youth.

In a statement, Kerry said preparing for and planning responses to youth homelessness is vital, especially when considering the amount of children that face this challenge.

"As a father, it's a punch in the gut to imagine children living on the streets, but this year alone, one in fifty American kids will be homeless," he said. "There are common sense reforms we can implement to help make things better."

NPR reports that an astounding 40 percent of kids who age out of foster care will become homeless. And according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, out of the 2 million youths who experience homelessness each year, 1 in 5 identify as LGBT.

Because many LGBT youths find themselves homeless because of familial rejection, the bill would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create programs that are centered on "reducing dejecting behaviors and increasing supporting behaviors and understanding among families to improve the chances of LGBT youth remaining at home."

The bill would also make sweeping changes throughout foster care programs, such as keeping kids in the system until they reach 21 years old and creating easier accessibility to funding and education resources.

Comments

[Epilef2000]

06:35 PM on 05/18/2011

real leadership coming out of the senate..and addressing foster kids...and targeting LBGT youth..is incredible..its a voiceless, money-less constituency

[troyrobertdavid]

02:33 PM on 05/17/2011

Many people when screaming “think of the children” they are trying to instill a fear of something, so happy to see this man saying it in a manner of instilling hope and understanding. Even if he didn’t actually use the words, “think of the children,” I would hope you get the point.

[Gyrlznluv]

03:32 PM on 05/16/2011

Thank you for thinking of the children of the LGBT communty. They need on the help they can get. Glad someone voiced this concern.

[eilish]

03:11 PM on 05/16/2011

This is why we take in homeless kids:

"Indeed, the transformation of the social state into the corporate-controlled punishing state is made startlingly clear when young people, to paraphrase W.E.B. DuBois, become problem people rather than people who face problems. Already disenfranchised by virtue of their age, young people are under assault today in ways that are entirely new because they now face a world that is far more dangerous than at any other time in recent history.

This is made obvious by the many "get tough" policies that now render young people as criminals, while depriving them of basic health care, education and social services. Punishment and fear have replaced compassion and social responsibility as the most important modalities mediating the relationship of youth to the larger social order. As anthropologist Alain Bertho points out, when war and the criminalization of social problems become a mode of governance, "Youth is no longer considered the world's future, but as a threat to its present. [For] youth, there is no longer any political discourse except for a disciplinary one."(2)

http://www.truthout.org/youth-suspect-society-coming-age-era-disposability/1304604010

[rysagr]

02:06 PM on 05/15/2011

perhaps he could just let them live on his yacht or 4 or 5 mansions. just saying

[sammy3110]

01:18 PM on 05/15/2011

The wealthiest US Senator (not even including his wife's Heinz fortune) thinks something should be done to help the poor. Curious world we live in.

[xlntcat]

06:31 PM on 05/15/2011

Don't know that Kerry is the wealthiest Senator but do know that he isn't the wealthiest Congressman.  That honor goes to the criminal 3 time car thief and arsonist, Darryl Issa.

[CatHead]

01:14 PM on 05/15/2011

It's not a punch to the gut to see any American living on the streets? It's a disgrace that we allow it at all.

[raffa657]

12:52 PM on 05/15/2011

Homophobia, like racism, is still rampant and destructive in our society.
I appreciate Sen Kerry's effort to mitigate damage to citizens who are targeted by such ignorance.

[JPMac]

12:48 PM on 05/15/2011

Please don't claim to give a rip about the poor when you buy a Z$7 million dollar boat and then try to get out of paying 500k in taxes that may be used to help some of the poor people you claim to care soo much about you and the rest of the uber rich liberals are complete frauds!!!

[xlntcat]

06:40 PM on 05/15/2011

Who cares if he really cares or not.  He is drawing attention to the black hole of foster care in America and to a long term problem of kids being kicked to the curb at 18 without the skills needed to live productively in our society.  Do you think that your self-pity solves problems?

[FOXYROSE]

12:47 PM on 05/15/2011

He's the richest Senator on the Hill and I just know he feels the pain of the homeless - bet he ponders about it on his hugh boat. Bet he hasn't been in a grocery store in decades - someone should ask him what a head of lettuce costs today.

[Erdgeist]

12:36 PM on 05/15/2011

According to conservative ideology these children are exercising their Constitutional freedom/free choice by becoming homeless. To do anything to help them would be SOCIALISM thus bordering on slavery (i.e., a denial of personal choice).

[chicgogo]

12:30 PM on 05/15/2011

Street children are ever present in third world countries as are a large gap between rich and poor and the absence of a strong middle class. Sound familiar?

[raffa657]

12:45 PM on 05/15/2011

Here! Here!
Spot on.

[sammy3110]

01:20 PM on 05/15/2011

Exactly.

[whoknew42]

12:27 PM on 05/15/2011

Good for you, Senator Kerry.

Homelessness in America is a shame - regardless of a persons demographic

[YouDeserveMyRespect]

12:25 PM on 05/15/2011

Good intentions, but I would rather that he sold off the yachts, and converted the many mansions to youth hostels and reconnected himself to those he can personally seek out and help.

[angryliberal]

12:49 PM on 05/15/2011

http://www.theonion.com/articles/kerry-makes-whistlestop-tour-from-deck-of-yacht,1132/

[Readbetweentheelevens]

01:09 PM on 05/15/2011

He's a Senator. He's speaking about where the country's tax dollar go or should go. I'd rather see it spent here than spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Libya.

I don't think it's fair to require him to sell his boat because he favors helping children. In fact, it speaks well of him that he has a big boat, but spends part of his day planning for the assistance of others. You are asking a high standard, a standard that is not required of a Senator. He asks for tax dollars to help children -- good on him, and good for us as a country.

[michelle5451]

03:55 PM on 05/15/2011

"He asks for tax dollars to help children" and the interesting part of that is, he also avoids paying certain taxes himself. I guess you haven't followed your hero as closely as others have. Kerry is a resident of Massachusetts (as am I), but he registered that $7 million dollar yacht in Rhode Island, although he lives here IN MASSACHUSETTS when Congress is not in session. Why did he purchase and register that yacht in Rhode Island? Because Rhode Island has no taxes on boats. By buying and keeping the yacht in Rhode Island, he saved $500,000 in sales tax and another $70,000 a year in taxes for keeping it registered in RI instead of MA. You go ahead and praise this champion of tax spending, personally I'll continue thinking he's a con artist - spends taxes, but also avoids paying them when possible.

[WhatDaBleep]

12:16 PM on 05/15/2011

Maybe you should start standing up more to be heard on this subject to stop it from happening --- JOHN!