ANDERSON – Community leaders and youth workers joined together to discuss a growing issue in Madison County – youth homelessness.
During the 2015-2016 school year, about 350 children in Madison County were homeless or had housing insecurity, according to an Indiana Youth Institute press release.
The number has grown over the years, as Madison County had about seven homeless children per 1,000 students. In 2016, there were nearly 20 homeless children per 1,000 students, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education.
On Thursday, the IYI Youth Worker Café featured a panel of Jennifer Tanksley, social worker at Tenth Street Elementary, Rob Spaulding of the Christian Center and Madison County Sheriff Scott Mellinger, with Natalie Carter of NRB Business Development Consulting moderating. Each panelist discussed how they have interacted with children involved in homelessness.
Tanksley said it is common for parents to not ask for help when facing homelessness or utilities being shut off because they are afraid Child Protective Services will take the children away. Children won’t be taken away for those reasons, she said.
However, there is help locally through several organizations for housing and bill assistance.
“Let’s destigmatize things as much as we can, and let’s get the resources out there,” Tanksley said.
Children who face homelessness aren’t always on the streets. Many times, families are couch surfing or families are doubled up in one home. Participants at the talk said the community needs shelters that will accept families and emergency housing in general for women and families.
Many of the people in attendance discussed different resources in the community and what the best solution would be.
The Christian Center offers homeless people a lot of help, Spaulding said. The center is even now working toward creating a place in which people who are homeless can shower, do laundry and have a mailbox.
“The pieces are there,” Spaulding said, referring to existing resources in Madison County. “It’s just getting them lined up."
Mellinger said he is working on a couple of projects that will work to get an effective, single point of entry for resources in Madison County. He would like to see a more localized 211, in which people are able to get better connected with resources locally.
Kim Rogers-Hatfield, vice president of operations at United Way of Madison County, defended 211 and said it sounded like Mellinger wants to create something that already exists.
The sheriff responded that he is looking at all methods of connecting people to resources easier, even if it means revamping something that already exists.
What he really thinks it will take to better connect people is for organizations in the community to work together more.
“Silos have to come down,” he said. “Each agency needs to take their little piece (of the team plan) and be OK with it,” he said.