economic struggles and loss of faith in the U.S. political system

"How dare you!" the girl said abruptly as she nudged a toy caracross a conference room table at the Chapman Partnership shelter in Miami'stough and predominantly black Overtown neighborhood.
There was no telling what Aeisha was thinking as her 32-year-old mother, Nairkahe Touray,spoke of how she burned through her savings and wound up living in a car withfive of her eight children earlier this year.

But how dare you indeed? How does anyone explain to kids like Aeisha andcountless others how they wound up homeless in the world's richest nation?
In a report issued earlier this month, the National Center on FamilyHomelessness, based in Needham,Massachusetts, said 1.6 million children were living on thestreets of the United States last year or in shelters, motels and doubled-upwith other families.
That marked a 38 percent jump in child homelessness since 2007 and Ellen Bassuk, thecenter's president, attributes the increase to fallout from the U.S. recessionand a surge in the number of extremely poor households headed by women.
Recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau provided a sobering backdrop. Basedon new or experimental methodology aimed at providing a fuller picture ofpoverty, the data showed that about 48 percent of Americans are living inpoverty or on low incomes.
Under the bureau's so-called Supplemental Poverty Measure for 2010, issuedlast month, the poverty level for a family of four was set at income anywherebelow $24,343 per year.
"I see it every day," said Alfredo Brown, 73, a retired army officer anddeputy director of the non-profit Chapman Partnership, when asked about childhomelessness.
The organization, funded largely by a 1 percent food and beverage tax onlarger restaurants to bankroll homeless programs, operates two sprawlinghomeless shelters in Miami-Dade County.
"I see so many children and mothers that are homeless and sleeping intheir car or an abandoned building, an old bus. It's a sad situation that welive in a country that has so much and many people have so little," Brownsaid.
Child homelessness is a relatively new social problem in the United States,where being on the street and the stigma attached to it has long beenassociated with adults with alcohol or drug dependency issues.
IMPOVERISHED MOTHERS
Families accounted for less than 1 percent of the U.S. homeless populationin the mid-1980s, according to Bassuk, but they now comprise about a third ofthe homeless population. A lot of children are dependent on poverty-strickensingle moms.
"There's sort of a Third World emerging right in our backyard. Youknow, we talk about developing countries but look at what's going onhere," Bassuk said.
To put a face to the breadth and depth of the homeless problem, a team of Reutersjournalists fanned out across the country in the past week, for interviews withparents and children who are down on their luck.
From Skid Row in LosAngeles to the South Bronx in New York, a common thread ofeconomic devastation from the recession ran throughout many of the storiesthese people told.
But there also was a common thread of hope running through their compressedlife stories.
Little Aeisha in Miami got visibly upset as her mother spoke tearfully aboutthe wear and tear on her children amid her struggles with a bad economy, severedepression, diabetes and chronic foot problems stemming from torn ligaments.
Touray sounded like an Occupy Wall Street protester herself, as shecomplained about bailout money for banks but not people. "You get treatedlike an animal because you're homeless," said Touray, who said she liveson just $583 a month in child support after going through a divorce last year.Her parents, who live separately in Atlanta and Chicago, are also homeless.
"Just because I'm homeless it doesn't mean that I was like nothingyesterday," said Touray, who said four small businesses she owned inAtlanta only went bust due to the recession.
She also complained about the tone-deafness of many politicians, saying theywere doing nothing to ease the unemployment and inequality that have come todominate the national conversation.
"I'm living the real deal," Touray said. "I don't need forsomebody to come up here and tell me what the economy's doing. They (thepoliticians) need to get out here and see these children, see theseparents."
RIDING THE RAILS
Across the country in Los Angeles, Reuters came across Luis Martinez, 34. Asingle parent, he lives with his three children at the Union Rescue Mission ona trash-strewn city block where homeless men and women stand vigil over plasticshopping carts.
But the shelter is an improvement over the time when Martinez passed nightson the L.A. subway with his children, riding the rails to nowhere.
A junior high school dropout who became unemployed after he injured his backon construction site job about six years ago, Martinez spoke proudly about howwell he said his kids were doing in school.
They have a laptop computer, which they use to help do homework through freewireless connections at McDonalds and Starbucks. They also have an Xbox videogame system and Martinez, who wears a necklace that says "My KidsFirst," has a cell phone to stay in touch with family and potentialemployers.
"I mean, I'm homeless but not hopeless," Martinez said.
"(It) gets easier as you go," said Jesse, Martinez's 8-year-oldson.
Highlighting the shrinking middle class in America, a reporter found Tracyand Elizabeth Burger and their 8-year-old son, Dylan. The Burgers said theyonce earned nearly $100,000 a year combined but saw their middle-classlifestyle evaporate when Tracy lost his job in audiovisual system sales.
Unable to pay rent, they were evicted from their apartment in early 2009 andhad to move into a motel. In March they moved into a cramped converted garageat Elizabeth's mother's house in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth, a former medical assistant, said she has less than six weeks lefton her unemployment insurance and was anxiously watching this week's standoffin Congress over extending those payments, along with the payroll tax cut for160 million Americans.
The congressional debate highlighted the partisan bickering that has madethis a tumultuous year in U.S. politics, while throwing Washington's ability tomake sound economic policy into doubt.
In central Florida, JustinSantiago, 15, said he was not surprised when he, his parents andthree younger siblings landed in a downtown Orlando shelter last September.
Since the national economic collapse in 2008, his out-of-work family bouncedfrom one relative's home to another, and left California in search ofemployment and stability.
"I wasn't shocked. When the economy's going down and it just drops,it's out of control," Justin said.
EYES ON THE PRIZE
In 16 years of marriage, his parents, Theresa and Timothy Santiago, managedto provide for their family by working multiple jobs, earning about $20,000 intheir best year. But work dried up and the family set out for Florida lastspring in search of cheaper living expenses.
After a run of more bad luck, they found their way to the Coalition for theHomeless of Central Florida shelter. But Justin is taking eighth grade honorsclasses now and says his family's recent experience will not keep him frompursuing his dream career in video game production and becoming an Internetsuccess story.
"It will get better for me and my family," he said. "I'll bemaking billions, I know that."
Antonio Dixon, 26, knows all about things getting better. His mother,Corenthia, said he bounced between at least a dozen homeless shelters growingup in Miami and Atlanta.
He eventually won a football scholarship at the University of Miami andfought dyslexia to become the first person in his family to graduate college.
"They had me study hard every hour," Dixon told Reuters.
He has since gone on to play defensive tackle for the NFL's PhiladelphiaEagles, making good on his boyhood dream.
Dixon has been sidelined by a torn tricep since early October. But he seemsconfident about overcoming adversity yet again and plans on being in thestarting lineup next season.
His advice to homeless kids is to stay in school and get focused on whateverit is they really want to do in life.
"Just keep on doing something you like and don't give up," Dixonsaid. I had to work myself up from the bottom to the top. I did that. Don't letnobody stand in your way. You just got to go and get it. You can't be afraid totake a chance on life."
Bassuk, a psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor said medicalproblems and under-achievement in school were among the things that often gohand in hand with childhood homelessness.
"These are kids who don't have any opportunities," she said."If you look at some of the educational variables, they're doing reallypoorly. And they're kids who can do OK. They just don't have appropriatesupport.
"It just seems that on every front this is a very vulnerable group ofkids," she said.