Dear Next President,

Poverty is a serious issue that is often overlooked in American society today— specifically on the homelessness of youth in America. Homelessness can negatively impact education and as a result many students make unfortunate grades and are absent more than the average student. These students will have to worry about surviving on everyday things we take for granted like the essential needs of food, shelter, and water. Instead of just enjoying everyday life and attending to their future education, they have to struggle with basic needs that every American should have access to. The United States of America is a very wealthy country, so it makes logical sense to solve our poverty issue and get every teenager off the streets.Your administration must launch an awareness campaign about how the homelessness of teens in this country can directly contribute to a detrimental future. Also consider making more families and teens across America more eligible for social programs that helps them get back on their feet. According to the Washington Post, there were more than 1.3 million U.S. students homeless in the years 2013-2014, this number is doubled from before the recession. Also according to the Huffington Post, youth aged from 14 to 21,who were homeless, consisted of 40% of these youth in foster care and almost 44% had been in a juvenile detention center, jail or prison. As evident in these statistics, homelessness can lead to an unsatisfying future for the young generation of America. From my perspective of growing up in a low income neighborhood, I saw firsthand of how poverty and homelessness can change people’s lives.This shows that poverty is the main factor in one’s life, because it affects their education, family, finances, and their future. If you can address this issue publicly and try to pass laws to combat youth poverty, then maybe America would finally pave the way to truly solving this issue that has plagued our nation for years. Lastly, this would not only help teens now but can have lasting effects for their children and their children’s children’s future.This small and new law you pass now to help combat this issue can definitely change America for the better in generations to come and it will grow in the future.

Sincerely,

Francisco Guzman

Works Cited

Brown, Emma. "These Are the Faces of America’s Growing Youth Homeless Population - The Washington Post." Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/06/17/these-are-the-faces-of-americas-growing-youth-homeless-population/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2016.

Pilnik, Lisa, and Darla Bardine. "We Are Failing Our Children: Addressing Homelessness Among System-Involved Youth | Huffington Post." The Huffington Post, 30 June 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-pilnik/we-are-failing-our-childr_b_10744632.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2016.