Home > Talk of East Texas > Archives > 2009 > November > 25 > Entry
Teens juggle school, life in homeless shelter
In many ways, Ashley Davidson, Dorothea Redic and Emily Guillote are typical teenage girls.
Davidson has a passion for basketball, Redic loves kittens and Guillote enjoys dancing and poetry. Their living situation, however, is different than that of most teenagers.
The three teens, all students at Pine Tree High School, live at House of Hope, a women’s homeless shelter in Longview. Another student, Jordan Turner, lives at Hiway 80 Rescue Mission, a local men’s homeless shelter.
“I’ve been in foster care most of my life,” Davidson, 19, said. “When I turned 18 in May of 2008, I thought I was ready to be out on my own, so I dropped out of high school and got a job and my own place. Within a few months, I realized that hadn’t been a wise decision. So I moved in here and returned to school.”
Eric Burger, director of Hiway 80 Rescue Mission, said teenagers are part of the changing face of homelessness in America.
“When I got into this ministry, the typical homeless person was a middle-aged man who usually had some combination of substance abuse problems and mental health issues,” Burger said. “We’re now starting to see more younger people whose situation is less a result of their own poor decisions or medical problems and more a result of economic and environmental factors that are completely beyond their control.”
High school students are still rare in most homeless shelters, he said.
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How can the community better help homeless teens?
Comments
By My Friend Flicka
November 26, 2009 10:27 PM | Link to this
I am glad to hear that there are people out there working towards helping these teens. We have them all over the place and our programs aren’t enough in many places. There are plenty of people who do have the monitary capabilities to assist in keeping these programs going and begun in places where they aren’t. If they truly want these teenagers to become responsible law abiding citizens then the need to put there money where there mouth is. In other words feed your worst enemy and he will be humbled and more than likely his animostiy will fade as you learn to treat him as a human being. Respect truly breeds respect once given, shown, and kept in tow. Thanks for this opportunity, My Friend Flicka