Schools in every corner of the United States serve children who have experienced homelessness or are currently homeless. Nearly 2.5 million children are now homeless in our country each year—that’s one out of thirty children. Children in our schools have lived on the streets, in cars, and in motels. They’ve moved in and out of crowded emergency shelters. They've experienced severe violence, abuse, neglect, and hunger. Traumatic events like these occur before or during homelessness, or too often both.
My journey working with homeless young adults began eleven years ago. I interviewed for a case manager position at Youth on Fire (YOF), a daytime drop-in center for homeless young adults ages 14-24 in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. I had just moved from the Midwest, and remember saying to YOF’s youth hiring committee, “I don’t know the resources around here yet, but I can promise that if you let me into your lives, I will be the biggest cheerleader you’ve ever had.” They did let me into their lives, and over the next eleven years, they taught me not simply to cheer for them, but how to support them as they navigated through the world. Below are some of the most important lessons I learned in over a decade of sharing laughter and tears, tragedy and triumph, and despair and hope with an incredible community of young people.
“Gender policing, like race based policing, has always been part of this nation’s bloody history.” -- TransJustice, Call to First Annual Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice, 2005
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