The Homeless and Their Children

In the essay The Homeless and Their Children, by Jonathan Kozol, it tells the story of an illiterate women who is raising her family in the … Hotel in New York. In this story, Jonathan visits The … Hotel, one of the biggest hotels for the homeless in New York. While he is there, he gets introduced to Laura, an illiterate single mom who is raising her four kids in the hotel. Throughout this article, it provokes a sense of sympathy for the thousands of homeless all over the country. It is hard to imagine just the kind of life that these homeless children and adults have gone through. Life is a vicious cycle. Just like when students go to their public schools everyday and do not know what it is like at other schools; children that grow up in The… Hotel only know what life is like to fight starvation and to live in the hotels for the homeless, in order for them to expect something more from life, these kids would have to know what to expect first. This cycle of life is one of the most frustrating as an American citizen. It is sad to think that the place or kind of childhood a person grew up with would be such a main factor in the outcome of their life.
As it is really hard to break the barriers that separate the rich from the poor we as a nation need to make sure that everyone has a chance to succeed. In the article it talk about when Jonathan talks to Laura and finds papers that Laura has stored up, but never had read to her. In the stack of papers that Jonathan found there were multiple urgent letters. One of the letters, from the hospital, informed Laura that her son had a bad case of lead poison. In an attempt to stay alive, kids would eat the sweet tasting paint that chipped off of the walls, much of which contained lead poisoning. This is just one of many papers that were stacked up on Laura’s desk, many of which were very important, but Laura didn’t know what they said because couldn’t read. Why did Laura not know what was going on in her own child’s life?