COLLEGE PARK – Danny Lamont Jones seems like an average high schooler. He goes to class, and comes home and writes music when he can’t focus on his homework.
But for much of his high school career Jones, 18, wasn’t living like an average student. He attended four different high schools as he moved in and out of homes and shelters in Baltimore city. When he turned 12, he said, he moved into a shelter in for homeless teenagers.
“I had to make me own way from there,” said Jones, who now lives with his uncle.
Jones is one of thousands of students in Maryland who have experienced homelessness. The number of K-12 students identifying as homeless in U.S. public schools hit a record high 1.2 million during the 2011-2012 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
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Foreclosures in zip codes 21801 and 21804 have increased over 400%, gonna be more homeless next year no doubt.
ReplyDeleteAnd why are these students homeless? It's because of parents who made poor decisions. Look up Danney Lamont Jones. Momma Bernice Jones didn't even know who Baby Daddy was until paternity testing was done. Old Bernice has got several paternity suits going on w/multiple Baby Daddies. Baby Daddies all have legal troubles of their own. The responsibility for Danny's homelessness lies squarely on the shoulders of a mother who made poor lifestyle choices. She laid in bed with crap, and when that happens you don't dare expect anything good to come of it. She and she alone made her children's bed. It's time these people start hearing the truth and if need be let them suffer the consequences of their irresponsibility. It's the only way to stop this madness.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this article restricted to Maryland? It's the same story all over the world. Maybe Marylanders care more about these people by providing shelters and an opportunity to make their own way, which is what this country was founded for.
ReplyDelete4:24 it should not be limited to maryland but it is another puff piece about the poor children who we are supposed to support for the rest of their lives because of poor choices. read 3:37
ReplyDeletePointing the finger of blame helps these homeless people how? I highly doubt every situation is the same as the one before. I would think being homeless is punishment enough for being irresponsible, if that indeed is true. Why add more suffering to it? What exactly would that accomplish? Make some feel better? Rubbing their noses in it? Revenge?
ReplyDeleteBy all means, address the issues that cause such misfortune, but does the baby need to be thrown out with the bath water?
I have yet to see anything resolved in a positive manner using hate or any other negative means.
Learned behavior - give me everything
ReplyDelete5:07-It's called personal responsibility and blaming them helps them way more than enabling them to continue on with poor choices. Unless you have been living under a rock, anyone can see that constantly providing for them hasn't helped the situation and has only caused it to escalate because it doesn't teach about responsibility. If you have't seen anything solved from negativity then you really really need to get out and see the real world. Negative consequences with repercussions produce productivity. And stop turning the truth into "hate." It's not productive and only shows that you aren't living in reality and have no good intelligent defense. Your attitude is enabling and in your mind you think you are paving your stairway to Heaven. You people think to just give others things. That's easy. Anyone can do that. It takes a bigger person who really cares for others to point out their irresponsible ways so it teaches them to take other paths in life.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand those who pat themselves on the back because they are feeding the hungry etc. Big DEAL! That's not honorable. Anyone can do that. Teaching them about how they got where they are is what matters and what makes a truly caring person.
You need to change your tune because it's people like you who are a direct cause of homelessness by being an excuse maker and an enabler. Yes, whether you choose to believe it or like it-you are at fault and that's the truth!
LOL 5:07. Understanding and sympathizing with these people has really worked, hasn't it? I'll answer for you-NO it hasn't. If case you haven't noticed the illegitimate rate has skyrocketed in this country. Illegitimacy is the number one cause of poverty-FYI. I've lived all over Europe where that rate isn't through the roof, like it is here and it's because the people who make poor decisions are frowned upon and looked down upon. Europeans are more cosmopolitan and want more for their children. It's not uncommon for parents there to tell their kids to not act like the gypsies whom they consider unsophisticated and no one wants to appear unsophisticated and uncultured.
ReplyDeleteThis is a well written article that brings to the front an issue that is growing by leaps and bounds. Yes in Salisbury. Foreclosures and lack of affordable housing is driving the number up of our homeless students. The Federal law that directs who is considered homeless and what services they are entitled to needs to be changed, the McKenney- Vento Act was initiated in the Reagan years, IT IS OUTDATED. Our legislators need to look it up and update it, as more people are having to move in with family members in this economy. Should they be "homeless' and receive services just because of this? In an educational system that is stressed to the max, we need to rethink what we are spending our monies on. A child without a roof over their head, living in a car, or elsewhere on the street, is homeless. A child in a temporary shelter is homeless. Not a child whose family is choosing to live in a motel, that parents or the government is paying for, or a child living with family members that have a home. In many cultures, this is the norm, large families sharing a home together.
ReplyDeleteThe way homeless is defined is much too broad. Let's update the law. In the meantime, we need to remember that it's not the kid's fault for the poor choices the parent has made. We need to do more- we need to TEACH them how to be independent and self sufficient, and break the cycle of dependency on the government. Change the learned behaviors.
December 19, 2013 at 6:00 PM
ReplyDeleteDecember 19, 2013 at 6:34 PM
I'll just have to agree to disagree with you two. Maybe you misunderstood what I was trying to say, maybe your self-righteousness clouds your reasoning, maybe you are just mean and hateful people. I really don't know and after your childish responses, I don't care.
Everybody is an expert and have the answers to every problem under the sun. Just ask them.
You should run for office and implement your plans, if you could get enough people to agree with what you say.
The inability to have an honest and open debate about the facts, cause and effects, remedies, etc., are very telling.
I don't know what to say to you two other than shake my head and move on to the next topic. I'm sorry I am not as intelligent or all-knowing as you. I'll just go crawl back under my rock, while wishing you a merry Christmas.
I am glad you have solved this problem so we can focus on others.
Folks living with their relatives are not homeless though they are categorized that way in the school system. Cap welfare benefits at two kids with no extra money for having a bunch more for the rest of us to raise.
ReplyDeleteYeah, who wouldn't want to be like China? But we could have two versus their one child.
ReplyDelete4:18-I'll freely admit I am very knowing and if everyone listened to me and follow my examples they would be much better off. I picked and chose my friends while growing up carefully. Same with a spouse. I was not going to lower myself and settle for anyone who didn't meet my standards which included being self sufficient and responsible.
ReplyDeleteLife is not for living for today and doing what feels good. It's about making responsible decisions and standing by them.
The reality is people the majority of the time, make their own beds. No one in good conscience can say that handing them things has worked to curb these situations people find themselves in. It takes personal responsibility which has become a foreign concept to most people.
I would never run for public office. My privacy has always been closely guarded and I will continue to keep it that way.
--4:18-- A very constructive epistle...NOT.
ReplyDelete