The Lexington City Council has been given a presentation detailing concerns about the city's homeless, particularly related to school children. It included a reference to a much higher number of homeless compared to the local federally-directed wintertime count.
This year’s LexCount in January resulted in 815 persons living without permanent housing. In her appearance before Council, Community Action Center Board Member Laura Babbage said a community-organized effort revealed more than 24 hundred homeless.
“Those who have been left out of those annual HUD numbers like people in hospitals, jails, treatment centers, sober living programs, and couch surfers. All of those were included,” said Babbage.
Babbage said the almost 600 surveys provided a much broader look at homelessness.
Also presented was information detailing 453 homeless school children. T.C. Johnson is the director of Fayette County Schools’ McKinney-Vento federal program. She said “Give A Kid A Home” is a fundraising effort to solicit money for such things as a first-month rent deposit or to purchase air mattresses.
“We’ve launched the ‘bed in a bag’ because we have students that are sleeping on the floor and so you can’t go to school and be productive if you haven’t had a good night’s sleep if you haven’t had something good to eat,” said Johnson.
Johnson said these students in K-12 can feel challenged and mentally stressed. She noted there’s a desperate need for another emergency shelter to cater to these families specifically. And Johnson added a pet foster care program is needed with some families sleeping in cars to avoid giving up their pets.
In a written statement, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said the Catholic Action Center count used different definitions of homelessness and different methods of taking the count compared to the LexCount tallying.
* WEKU is working hard to be a leading source for public service, fact-based journalism. Monthly sustaining donors are the top source of funding for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation
