20% increase in homelessness in Duluth

The most sobering information discussed at yesterday’s Education Committee meeting was covered in today’s Trib. That story begins:

“The Duluth school district and its Head Start program are expected to serve 550 homeless youth by the end of the school year, a number that has increased by more than 20 percent since 2012.”

A twenty percent increase!

I can’t help but link this to some of the ugly national politics I’m seeing. This could be the local trauma underlying a nation with flat wages, a growing wealth divide, the lure of opioid drugs, a massive dependence upon incarceration to get problems out of sight and a loss of national confidence.

I’d raise taxes if I thought we could help these kids who now constitute 6-7% of our students. Ah, but remember what I told Marci. First I would campaign for reelection on the tax raising platform and give voters the chance to shoot me down.

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