Homeless Children

"At This School, Homeless Isn't Hopeless" (Dec. 15) details a very sad commentary on our society, yet relates considerable heart at play within a difficult situation. Beth Ojena, principal of Coeur d'Alene Elementary School, is an unsung hero of the LAUSD. As a now-retired 33-year veteran of the district, I distinctly recall Ojena as a bright and very caring person; couple intelligence with talent, strength, ability and compassion and one has a completed equation spelling success.

Ibrahim Shaban said he was 15, but he looked much younger in his pajama pants and sweat shirt with the worn-away rhinestones, dirt caked on his bare feet, a knife scar on his face. He strolled through the crowds in Tahrir Square the other day, watching banners unfurl, listening to speeches. He sometimes sounded like a miniature rebel, distilling the nation's rage in his narrow body. "My father died a month ago, so I've been living in the square," he said. "He had heart problems. He sold cups and glasses in the street.

Nailah Lewis wasn't frightened by her first encounter with a hissing cockroach. And she didn't jump when she came face to face with a reticent hermit crab and a crow flapping its wings. The fourth-grader wants to be a biologist, and that interest only intensified during the days she spent at an unusual summer science camp organized by Cal State Long Beach. "We get to do a lot of cool experiments," said a grinning Nailah, 8, one recent morning. "We built and flew kites and made airplanes.

The line of students who walk the few blocks from Western Avenue Elementary keeps getting longer. Only a year ago, it was just a handful who ventured once a week to the South Los Angeles Learning Center, an afterschool program for homeless children in a tiny strip mall. Now, it's more than a dozen, five days a week. On this afternoon, the kids are rowdy and restless. They chomp on chips and grapes, sip punch and chatter. The noise ricochets through the cramped classroom, but Charles Evans, the man who runs the place for School on Wheels, hones in on Jeanquis.

A champagne brunch to benefit homeless children at St. Joseph Center in Venice will be held today at 11:30 a.m. at 72 Market Street, a restaurant in Venice. Joyce Rey and Cecelia Waeschle of the Prudential-Rodeo-Jon Douglas Co.; TWA pilot Cliff Waeschle, and Lou Piatt, president of the Prudential-Jon Douglas Co., will host the event. A donation of $125 a person is suggested.

More than 65,000 homeless children fail to regularly attend school because they do not have transportation, clothes or the proper motivation, the Education Department reported Friday. "Our fears are confirmed," Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos said in sending the report to Congress. "Each school day thousands of young people are losing their best opportunity for a better life--education."

The country's fastest-growing homeless population? Children and teens. They and their families make up an estimated 40% of Americans living in shelters, on the streets, in cars -- and the reasons are as varied as the people affected: catastrophic medical expenses, a low-wage job that doesn't cover the basics, the loss of a job or a parent, a decreasing social safety net. In "Nick News Special Edition: There's No Place Like Home: Homeless Kids in America" (Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

A dinner to benefit the St. Joseph Center's programs for homeless children will be held at 6 p.m. Nov. 13 in the Hotel Bel-Air by Cecelia Waeschle and Joyce Rey of Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills, and TWA pilot Cliff Waeschle. The annual fund-raiser of the Venice charity is now in its 11th year. For more information call (310) 273-5064.

The 15th annual benefit dinner for child-care programs for the homeless at St. Joseph Center in Venice will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Hotel Bel-Air. The fund-raiser is sponsored by Realtors Cecelia Waeschle and Joyce Rey; Waeschle's husband, Clifford; and Coldwell Banker Real Estate, where Waeschle and Rey work. Dinner is $150 per person. For more information, call (310) 273-5064.

A podiatrist from St. John's Hospital is making sure that homeless children are well-heeled for the holidays. With the help of the Stride Rite shoe store chain and students from the John Thomas Dye school in Bel-Air, Dr. Michael Levi has collected more than 500 pairs of children's shoes over the past few weeks. He donated them to Para Los Ninos, a family support center in Downtown Los Angeles. To donate shoes, contact Levi at(310) 829-3636.

Nailah Lewis wasn't frightened by her first encounter with a hissing cockroach. And she didn't jump when she came face to face with a reticent hermit crab and a crow flapping its wings. The fourth-grader wants to be a biologist, and that interest only intensified during the days she spent at an unusual summer science camp organized by Cal State Long Beach. "We get to do a lot of cool experiments," said a grinning Nailah, 8, one recent morning. "We built and flew kites and made airplanes.

A homeless man accused of killing his 3-month-old son just weeks after Los Angeles County social workers at a skid row shelter decided he could care for the infant pleaded guilty Thursday to child abuse, authorities said. The November 2005 death of Mikeal Wah-hab III led to sweeping changes in the way social workers deal with homeless children, including a revamped team of county officials who search out and assess children living on skid row. Mikeal's lifeless body was found in a Monterey Park motel room where county social workers had taken the father and child to temporarily live.

At 5 weeks old, with a crown of dark hair and big blue eyes, Anastasia Garcia is one of the newest faces of the economic crisis. She was born homeless. "When we are lucky enough to be settled, we will tell her that things were not always as easy as you may think," said Angela Garcia, 26, laying the infant down in a crib at the Broward Outreach Center in Pompano Beach, Fla.

The government will give the two impoverished child stars of the hit movie "Slumdog Millionaire" new homes, the state's top official said Friday, creating the possibility that the homeless children will soon own not one but two new apartments. Rubina Ali, 9, and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, both lost their homes this month when authorities demolished parts of their slum in Mumbai. Ashok Chavan, the chief minister of the state of Maharashtra, said he approved the transfer of two government apartments to the children on Friday.

The 15-year-old twins sleep among trash and dirt in a nook under a railway platform and spend their days at a Salvation Army shelter in a grim Moscow neighborhood. But Denis and his sister Olesya prefer being homeless to living with their parents in Elektrostal, 36 miles east of the capital. They say their mother abused them physically and verbally, then kicked them out in July, telling them to find jobs.

One photograph shows a skin-and-bones boy lying on a bare floor, leashed like a dog to the pink bars of an unoccupied crib. Another shows boys curled naked on the ground, one of them smeared with human waste. The scenes were ghastly. But almost as jarring was the response of an Iraqi government minister called upon Wednesday to explain how a state-run orphanage in the capital could have kept two dozen children in such conditions.

The answer to the question had been simple for the homeless teenager, Michael Baker says, but it stunned the banquet audience into silence: What's most challenging about your situation? "Doing my homework," Shaquila had told potential supporters of the Anaheim Boys & Girls Club. "I have to do it in the bathroom because there's seven of us living in the motel room. "I put the toilet seat down and sit on that and put my book on the sink."

To applause and cheers from hundreds of volunteers, Omar Larrama carried his 1-year-old son down a red carpet as they made their grand entrance Sunday at one of this city's more remarkable holiday parties. Father and son were embraced by costumed cartoon characters, along with clowns and therapy dogs festooned with wreaths and Christmas bandannas. The Larramas looked up to see arches of red and green balloons and hanging holiday murals painted on sheets by area high school students.