Who cares that teens are homeless in Iowa?
By REKHA BASU rbasu@dmreg.com October 25, 2009 06:02 AM Kaitlin Nelson seems to have what it takes to succeed: drive, introspection, responsibility. She survived a drug-infested childhood home, then parental break up and poverty. She learned to juggle studies and work, graduated from high school. Even as her sister, according to Kaitlin, was shuffled around and raped by a foster father, Kaitlin dodged those bullets. Still, at 19, she is one of 10,000 Iowa teens who are homeless. In her words, “Every day is a constant battle.” We could say that children like her fell through the cracks. But with 1.35 million of them homeless in the United States, it’s more like craters. When Kaitlin had her gallbladder removed, she went straight from the hospital into a homeless shelter. She knows the sting of strangers’ looks over grungy clothes that were someone else’s discards. “We don’t want to look homeless,” says Kaitlin. “We just want to be normal.” I was introduced to Kaitlin at the Iowa Homeles
