homeless kids in arkansas among worst in nation

[backtoblue]

DALLAS – Larry Canady took his family to a homeless shelter three weeks ago, no longer able to make ends meet after he and his wife were laid off from their jobs.

The family of five was already living from paycheck-to paycheck. They went from renting a four-bedroom brick home in a south Dallas suburb to sharing one room in a dormitory-like shelter.

"No one knew the economy was going to crash so hard like it did," said Larry Canady, 38, now at the nonprofit Family Gateway facility in Dallas. "It caught us off guard."

The Canady family's story is a familiar one and in no place more so than Texas. A study by the National Center on Family Homelessness released Tuesday placed Texas 50th — last of all states — in how homeless children fare.

The ranking considered four areas: the percentage of homeless children; their overall well-being; risk factors for homelessness, such as poverty and foreclosure rates; and what the state is doing to address the problems.

At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana.

Source: AP
Read more: http://www.familyhomelessness.org