CBS News' Scott Pelley and Nicole Young reflect on their experience while doing stories about homeless children and adults in America.

While being interviewed Scott Pelley states statistics, “25% of kids in this country are living at poverty level.  That number comes from the Brookings Institute.  1 out of 4 children are living below the level of poverty.”

When Pelley recalls talking to a group of homeless children he says, “You are looking at these lovely little kids who are the kids in your school.  These are the kids that sit next to your kids at school, really great insightful smart cheerful kids, and when you talk to them over time you really get a sense of the struggle, the daily struggle that they are in.”

Nicole Young tells Overtime editor Ann Silvio about her experience during the interview of the school children, "From beginning to end to hear a child talk about what it feels like to be hungry and then adding on that extra element of not having light to do their homework, it was just unexpected."

Pelley sums up, “What we are saying is meet these people, see what they are going through ,hear what their stories are.  The congress, and the president, the state legislators can decide the appropriate things to do, but these people need to be heard from.  There are millions of them across the country and they are largely suffering in silence.” Full Story

Scott Pelley reports on homeless children in America and says how "it's life for a lot of folks. The number of kids in poverty in America is pushing toward 25 percent. One out of four.  Of all the homeless families in Florida, two-thirds are living on the street."

Pelley continues, "Earlier this year, when folks heard about the homeless students in central Florida, four million dollars in donations poured in. Beth Davalos set up food banks in 41 Seminole County schools; they gathered up clothing for the kids and shelled out cash for motel rooms.  Four million is a lot of money, but think of this: of all the families without shelter in America, one third are in Florida."

As Beth Davalos describes her job to the 60 minutes team she says, "I hear about it every week, every couple of days. If they're not living in their car right now, they are avoiding it. Some of them don't even have cars to live in. Or they recently got out of it.  Ms. Davalos goes on to say, "the longevity of homelessness continues to rise, so people are running out of resources. The unemployment runs out. Their savings run out. The family that lent them money does not have it anymore 'cause they're looking at economic hardship. And before you know it they find themselves living in their car because they ran out of all options."

Homeless children, who attend Casselberry School in Florida, talked to Scott Pelley.  Marquis Gines shared his homeless experience.  "We were really scared. So we would stay up all night sometimes and watch over my mom and keep her safe."

Arielle Metzger has lived in a truck with her father, brother, and dog for five months.  She tells 60 minutes, "before the truck I always saw all these homeless people and I would feel so bad for them. And then as soon as we started living in the truck ourselves I've seen even more. And I just feel so bad. And even though I'm homeless myself I wanna do as much as I can to help them get up, back on their feet."  Full Story

60 Minutes did a story on homeless children in America, finding children in Florida who were going through hardships and families running out of options.  

Scott Pelley’s producer Nicole Young revisited Seminole County after Beth Davalos, who runs programs for homeless kids in the county’s schools, told 60 Minutes how it was getting worse.  Now children were not only living in hotels and motels, but more and more are now living in cars.

“It’s the same story you hear over and over again” Young says as she and Beth drive to a house where they find a family of five sitting on the porch.  “Their mom had a full time job, but working minimum wage with four kids isn’t enough to keep a roof over your head.  The good graces of family members and friends ran out, couches became full.  The mother said she needs help and she has no one else to help her and Beth put all of them in a car and brought them to a motel.  Those kids, you could see the sigh of relief in their face that they didn’t have to spend another night in a car.  That hotel room was the first sign of normalcy I’m sure those kids have had in a very long time.”  Full Story

CBS News’ Scott Pelley, along with the 60 Minutes team, interview people to talk about the recession-fueled foreclosures that are taking place all over America.  “Home values have dropped so far, so fast, that nearly 25 percent of mortgage holders today owe more than their house is worth.  And with unemployment so high, so long, many face foreclosure."

“Perfectly good homes, worth 75, 100 thousand dollars or more a couple of years ago, are being ripped to splinters in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Here, the great recession left one fifth of all houses vacant. The owners walked away because they couldn't or wouldn't keep paying on a mortgage debt that can be twice the value of the home. Cleveland waited four years for home values to recover and now they've decided to face facts and bury the dead.”

“Former County Treasurer Jim Rokakis is leading the effort to tear down thousands of abandoned homes because they're rotting their neighborhoods from the inside out. It often starts, he told us, when a vacant house becomes an open house to thieves.”

Mr. Rokakis says, “This happens every day. And the foreclosure crisis creates this spiral, because as a result of this people are now more likely to leave neighborhoods like this. And as they leave, the scavengers come in and do the same thing to the house next door or across the street.”

Pelley continues, “In theory there shouldn't be this many abandoned houses. When homeowners walk away, the bank is supposed to take responsibility. But one little known feature of the great recession is, that many banks are walking away too, unwilling to maintain a house whose value has crashed.”  Full Story

Buoyed by the success of home builders and their trade partners during the housing boom, throughout which many building industry participants generously donated some of their profits back into the communities where they worked, Irvine, Calif.–based HomeAid America grew to become one of the largest developers of transitional housing for the homeless in the U.S.

But as profits became losses for the home building industry, the non-profit lost many of its contributors, and those who remained had much less to give. CEO Jeffrey A. Slavin realized that if HomeAid’s mission was to survive, it had to add a new operational model beyond building big, new shelters and doing major renovations. It needed a less-ambitious, yet still helpful program for those temporarily in need of a roof over their heads.

“We wanted to keep the industry engaged to benefit shelters for the homeless,” Slavin said. So the organization’s leaders came up with the idea of making shelters that already exist cheaper to operate by retrofitting them to save energy costs. “That way service providers get to put that back into blankets, food, services, whatever,” says Slavin.

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December 2011 - Tom Costello of NBC News reports on how 2011 was a record-breaking year for natural disasters in terms of lives lost and property damaged. Twelve US natural disasters in 2011 have caused over $52 billion dollars in damages. 

His report in this NBC News video shows examples of the massive flooding, droughts, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme climate change that have destroyed thousands of homes and towns in the United States. More than 1,000 Americans have died, and entire US towns have been destroyed, leaving those who have survived without a place to live.

According to Costello, “The first five months of 2011 had already proven to be record breakers. It only got worse. In all, more than 3,000 monthly weather records have been broken so far this year.”

And the forecast looks even more grim: According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Deputy Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, “Everything we know about the climate system and its physics say that we will see more frequent extreme events of greater severity and intensity.”

Continue reading…

CBN News reporter, Dale Hurd describes the destruction that the natural disasters of the year 2011 have caused.  The earthquake in Japan alone killed more than 15,000 people and almost 5,000 were recorded as missing.  

Evidence points to the role housing plays as an essential platform for human and community development. Stable housing is the foundation upon which people build their lives—absent a safe, decent, affordable place to live, it is next to impossible to achieve good health, positive educational outcomes, or reach one's economic potential.

"More than 2 million young people will experience some form of homelessness this year. Virgin Mobile, through its youth homeless initiative called the RE*Generation, has been very active in helping to raise awareness, funding, and volunteerism."

To see the video, click on Continue Reading below.

"Don't believe the hype. Just because everyone says the economy's coming back doesn't mean that homeless kids don't need a place to sleep and keep warm," - Flavor Flav of Public Enemy

The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled  "Opening Doors: A Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness," which calls for ending child and family homelessness in 10 years while wiping out chronic homelessness and homelessness among veterans in five years.

Queen Latifah, HOPE NOW™ and Fannie Mae join forces to help homeowners understand how to prevent foreclosure. Hear the first-hand accounts of several homeowners who have faced foreclosure and found answers.

"Housing counselors are available free of charge in nearly every community across the country."

John Taylor, President and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, advise people to:

"Really look for reputable people and ideally a non-profit housing counseling agency that is in your community and specializes in helping families who are facing problems with their mortgages."

To see the video, click on Continue Reading below.

The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act with substantial changes, including...

“I know first-hand what it’s like to be young and without a roof over my head,” she told Congress. “I’m blessed that my own story has had such a positive ending. But the same cannot be said for the over one million kids out there on the streets who are at risk and have no voice in society.” – Jewel

To watch her testimony, click continue reading below.