Would also turn out to be true and not because of some historical accident, but because our Economic System was intentionally rigged in favor of corporations and wealthy americans over everyone else. Trickle down economics was woven into the National Conversation consciousness as if it were written into the founding documents of our country. Two hundred years of struggle and progress had been intentionally reversed over the course of the last 30 years. If a foreign power had announced that was its plan for america, we would have gone to war. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] and were back live in nashville, and heres author Richard Schweid live from the southern festival of books. [inaudible conversations] thank you all very much for coming. Thanks, of course, to the southern festival of books. Open the floor to questions so without further ado one thing i want to mention, a lot of people tend to conflate all families with chronically Homeless Individuals and they are two populations with different sets of needs so you might bear that in mind. The introduction to my book is called the family room, a place to sleep. For most of us it is a given in our lives along with a roof over our heads and our own front door to close, ever since the beginning of the european colonization of north america jamestown in 1607 and the mayflower pilgrims Plymouth Colony in 1620, communities on the source have had to deal with those among them who did not have a place to sleep, people who could not provide for themselves or their children and had no one to give them shelter. Despite the fact the new world offered any ablebodied person an abundance of seafood and fertile soil life was not easy. Disease, war and accidents were constantly leaving families to fend for themselves. A woman could be widowed in the blink of an eye, the loosing of an arrow or the bite of a mosquito. Widows and children who depended on a mans hard work could suddenly be left with no support. Women led to death during childbirth or cut down by fevers leaving a man behind to raise the children. For one reason or another some people have always found themselves trying to maintain families in the most precarious conditions. From the Plymouth Colony until today Public Officials have generally accepted the idea that they were responsible for the care of the extremely poor among them, local governments to some degree have always accepted an obligation to care for the poor, particularly those families who were indigent. In the winter of 2002, i was staying in a dearborn, Michigan Hotel researching a different topic when i began to wonder how that was currently being met. Each morning i would rise in my room and go down the lobby to the highway for free donuts. Neatly dressed and groomed boys, two girl standing by the front door waiting for a school bus, peering out, packs on their backs was one morning curiosity moved me to the who they were. Homeless, the clerk said, the county sent them. Their families must have had an unusually nasty run of bad luck. No, he said, the local shelter for homeless families was fool, the motel on the outer reaches of Michigan Avenue was always home to the overflow population. Rooms paid for 60 a night by wayne county, one room to a family. Dont worry, we dont let the kids have donuts in the morning. Those are only for our paying guests. In the afternoon kids ran up and down the hall from one end to the other, raw michigan winter made it too cold to play outside for any length of time and they had energy to burn. Hard for me to believe children in the United States were being raised in motel rooms with nowhere to play but long narrow hallways. I began to read about homeless families. The question how to relieve families living in desperate poverty has a long history the present situation is different and perhaps worse than it has ever been. Never before has the number of homeless including so many single women with children. 50 years ago the word homeless signified dysfunctional individuals mostly men who drank heavily and slept around was now it is more likely to mean a young single mother with small children and a minimum wage job. In 1980 families with children made up only 1 of the nations homeless. By 2014 that number was 37 of the total. Naively i was shocked to learn over the course of 2002 more than 1 million children were homeless in the richest nation in the world, living in motel rooms and cars and shelters, doubled and tripled up, packed into houses of family or friends, the only constant condition being too many people in too little space. Estimated one in 10 of Homeless Children live in a motel and families usually included a single parent who could not get enough deposits together at the same time in an apartment but was able to scrape by. And that held minimum wage jobs. Brothers, sisters and just a mother, and the man was around too. Two double beds, and a big motel television. In dearborn the number of homeless families skyrocketed. In 2006, 1. 6 million children experiencing homeless during the year. The number had risen to 2. 5 million. In 2013, 20 Million People were living in deep poverty with incomes less than half the official poverty rate. Three times the number in such desperate straits from 1976, the growing gap between the haves and have nots created a pool of extremely poor families unmatched since the great depression, a vast flood tide of people adrift with nothing to hold onto. They spend long days and nights just getting by trying to make it through another week without spending money on anything but food and shelter while putting off going to the doctor or getting the car repaired. Although they are frequently without resources they must deal with the same problems the rest of us, illness, substance abuse, sons and daughters in trouble, as we try to get through the day. This kind of the family poverty is happening not in isolated pockets across the country but in cities, counties and states from one end of the nation to another. Somewhere in our home state children are growing up in motel rooms while others are living in cars, and the communal radar is okay with their parents to draw attention and bring trouble. These are not mentally ill people walking the streets wrapped in blankets or chronically Homeless Individuals pushing supermarket carts full of what they own, these are mothers trying to keep their children fed, sheltered and out of the hands of the authorities. It may seem these peoples lives do not directly affect us. Given when so many people live among us in such hardship their presence inevitably will have consequences for the communities eroding the underpinnings of the very society that nurtures us and forms our world. What does it mean if we are thriving when so many around the fire living in misery having such a hard time getting through each day. What does it mean for them and what does it mean for us . Today is about poverty are closely linked to political affiliation, 2014 paul found 60 of republicans believe poverty is a result of decisions individuals have taken compared with only 24 of democrats. The belief that the poor are responsible for their own plight mitigates if not annuls the public responsibility, and those who cannot provide themselves. The substantial segment of our Society Holds to provide more than the barest assistance to homeless families to encourage them and discourage them from better educating themselves. Social Service Workers and policymakers spend years, even decades debating whether these families, to adulthood, and adulterated into society. They move among us and have them scared, scarred and emotionally stunted for life, raising another generation of 4 children. The view of these children through hard work, and good luck will grow up to pull themselves up but most will never have an opportunity to do so. Various studies, 10 year plans are against family homelessness. All the while the gap continues to grow between rich and poor with more people sliding toward the bottom and taking families with them. I for one did not have any idea so many children were adrift around me. And traveling in this invisible nation the more i was astonished by the numbers but also became clear, interviewed social Service Providers and read histories of family poverty in the United States was then today we have the capacity to eradicate the 21stcentury plague of homelessness. We know how to do it, we need only commit to doing so. That was the introduction. I will read a couple pages here, a couple more. I grew up in nashville, tennessee in grew up in nashville and figured it would solve the well as well as any other place to appreciate the reality based on homeless families. My childhood was privileged in a prosperous suburb. I knew i might gain no insight into the daily lives of homeless families by living sidebyside, these were people trapped, i had the ultimate privilege of being able to leave whenever i wanted, to parachute into their lives and understand in a few weeks agos resumption, no one willing to jump into poverty, people fall into it. At least i would be breathing the same air as they were in the same sites in front of my eyes jumping to the same sinkhole. I wanted to understand how this could be happening in the United States, what was done over the last centuries to deal with family homelessness and what is or was not being done today. I started my research in november 2003 at trinity motel. They were easily assembled, rental car keys, swiss army knife, handheld tape recorder, 39. 95 specialized tool required. And shock and outrage held. I would spend time putting my nose into other peoples business, answering questions, recording interviews, trying to get an idea what life was like for millions of children living in motel rooms across the United States for a few months or years of their lives. And exit off of interstate 65 south, a 5 minute drive from downtown nashville in a neighborhood giving to folks having a rough go of it, People Living in motels and trailer parks, a neighborhood in all the nations midsized small cities, convenient businesses and cigarettes and lottery tickets, huge car lots on the front windshield, Check Cashing store front, and offering cheap goods for uncertain futures, the occasional sign in spanish chocked on a big black board in front of the garage indicating the presence of a certain latino population but the vast majority, this was a middleclass neighborhood in the 50s, Michael Douglas told me, he was balding, white, 50 years old, and the owner of charlie bobs restaurant, the only real eatery remaining and a good one. He was also a cook. It was a major route in and out of nashville. My dad bought three motels the rated aaa by the automobile association, this was before 1968 when the interstate went in, killed everything. My dad sold the motels, people bought them for girls working street deals, used them they didnt use them they still do. Sex industry workers were not in short supply, women wearing too few clothes for the weather all dressed up with no place to go to be found walking along the side at any hour. As i was leaving the motel one evening a young woman with long stringy blonde hair and a spotty complexion was standing in an open doorway of a room, she met my eye as i pulled hard on the door behind me checking to make sure it had locked which he asked for a ride down the road to the market, a Convenience Store a few blocks away. It was cold and drizzly, she had on a blue jacket. She introduced herself as red. The reddest think about her was her left eye, bloodshot and drooping. You get high did you know. I used to, i said companionably. I dont know what you are doing here, everybody at this place is high today. I have a girlfriend which i dropped her off at the market and when i drove by half an hour later she was still there standing under the store roofs overhang, under an outside light in cold, wet night air. I almost have to offer her a ride but didnt and went back to the motel. My room was a world in itself though not one in which you would want to raise your children. It had a carpet topped with brown cigarettes that glowed like cockroaches sometimes they were. The bureau drawers were so nasty, i left my underclothes and suitcase to keep it shut and oppressively heavy smell of cigarette smoke on in the air and seeped into the walls and mirrors and every surface. There was no wastebasket, neither did the bathroom with a shower curtain and sink. I hung a plastic bag for my trash. Or glasses were provided. In return for my 150 a week someone dropped a towel and change of betting each friday and gray sheets had small holes. The front desk was a plastic shield with a round hole in it. One happen to be there, which was not likely. Beside the soul was a bunch of rules. Some such as the one reading no visitors after 9 00 p. M. Were not taken seriously. People came and went all night, knox rang out on doors, cars idled in the parking lot under the shadow lighting, issuing out of their tailpipes into the cold air. All visitors must sign in at the office. I never saw anyone doing so. One posted rule taken seriously, anyone evicted will have their things thrown away. On a regular basis families were evicted from rooms for not paying rent, they were locked out and all their belongings were forfeited. Childrens toys and favorite things were gone forever. Anyone who has ever watched a young child form an attachment to a beat up raggedy doll or scrap of material or the way children fall all over themselves, affection, anger and everything who would nothing more than that leap soundlessly just about anywhere will understand sudden overnight loss may generate terrible anxiety. Kids regularly arrived at school with only the shirts on their back, textbooks needed to be replaced. It happened frequently enough the teachers at Schwab Elementary School with 350 students from kindergarten through fourth grade kept kids clothes in various sizes, the school sat across four lanes from trinity, it was a solid and Safe Building opened in 1890, permanent and anchored behind the grassy turnaround that set off of the pike. It was like any school providing a structured day with rules to follow in things to learn. In 2003, 75 of the student body had been homeless, many kids who began the Academic Year and rolled in schwab would be attending a different school. And by the end of second grade, life for the children who lived in a dozen motel scattered around dickerson pike. It was a long way from what most had. This is where i never found myself in 30 years living in nashville as a child and adult which most who didnt pass this way went through with car doors locked. There were no Community Centers nor libraries. The neighborhood have dubious character, even the bookmobile was not serving. The closest libraries are a couple bus stops away a teacher at schwab told me. People who dont have money to pay for their rent, will not take bus fare to go through a library. Kids who have nothing, Family Living in motel rooms, cooking on hot plates, might be a mom, dad, two or three kids in one room, the kids dont go home to anything close to a quiet, calm environment. Even if they are not moving and they move a lot, turn over is greatest when rent is due. That is when people move. I think i will stop there. We will go on to talk a little bit about this. Catherine was kind enough to accompany me and has a masters degree in social work from the university of tennessee and served as Homeless Education Program supervisor of Metro NationalPublic Schools for 19 years, born and raised in nashville and serves Numerous Councils addressing needs of families experiencing homelessness but she taught me a whole lot about nashville, was kind enough to spend time talking to me and as the spaniards say she has no hair on her tongue which means she speaks the truth and doesnt hesitate to do so. So what kind of affect of homelessness is there . The biggest thing to understand is the students i work with are very diverse. Avoid making generalizations, because you are homeless the deck is stacked against you. I worked with many students who are incredibly resilient. It is important to understand that from the beginning but i see so much strength, students and children and parents i work with. In terms of the challenges we see that makes the school they problematic for students, make their education a challenge, a big issue we see, student absences and from what richard described, moving very frequently, could be every month or every other month, if youre moving frequently, regular School Attendance may be hard for a family to achieve even if it is a goal of theirs was we see kids with very poor attendance records, we provide special transportation for students to get to school even if they moved out of the area the bus would normally run but we see issues related to attendance and anxiety you touched on, as you can imagine going home at the end of the school day when the bell rings and the bus dropped you off and not knowing where you are going to go, if your parent is going to be waiting to get off the bus, not knowing if the friend or relative letting you stay at the house might have had a bad day and locked the doors and you may left outside. We see anxiety around those issues. The basics in terms of School Supplies, school clothing, we do provide that for students, we have social workers and counselors who work with students who have needs that many of them pass under the radar. Our families proudly announced their homelessness, they have needs, no great reluctance on the part of families to share the personal side of their story with school staff, someone getting involved, parents have fear of losing their children, a lot of that stuff guarded close to them and often reluctant to share that and that cra