Serving as a voice for the homeless children of Allegheny County
and ensuring that homeless children have equal access to
the same educational opportunities and experiences as their peers







Have you as an individual or you and members of your immediate family ever experienced any of these circumstances?

  • A period of unemployment?
  • A long-term illness?
  • An injury that meant loss of work hours?
  • A lack of transportation to work?
  • A damaged or destroyed home because of a fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, or other natural disaster?
  • A rent or mortgage payment equal to more that half of monthly income?
  • An inability to keep up with monthly utility bills? rent or mortgage payments?
  • A bad or poor credit rating?
  • No extended family network to help if trouble occurs?
  • Domestic violence?
  • A struggle with alcohol/drugs or mental health problems?
  • Loss of a spouse because of divorce, separation, or death?

These circumstances are not out of the ordinary, and our personal experience of any one of these doesn't mean we are likely to become homeless.

Yet each of our "yes" answers is something we share in common with many homeless families. Perhaps, then, our "yeses" can help us more easily comprehend how, when several of these situations occur simultaneously, families can find themselves temporarily without a home.



Adapted from the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Homeless Sensitivity Survey, November 2006



4/19/07