TBS Teen Programs

Please join the TBS Teen Learning Programs for dinner and a panel of speakers from the Faces of Homelessness Speakers’ Bureau Tuesday, October 11^th from 6-8pm. Our guests are or have been homeless and are working to educate the public about homelessness and what can be done to end it. This program is open to all teens, 6^th -12^th Grade and REQUIRED for all TELEM students and Tuesday Night Sha’arim students.

Ending homelessness must begin with the understanding that people who are or have been homeless are our neighbors and members of our community. Public perceptions and attitudes toward persons experiencing homelessness or in danger of becoming homeless need to change in order for positive, long-term solutions to be realized. Most Americans rarely interact with people who are or who have been homeless. The lack of interaction between different groups of our society, combined with impersonal or inaccurate descriptions of homelessness posed by the media and public officials, contributes to a distancing of those who have housing from those who do not. As a result, homelessness is perceived as an abstract social problem.

Those who experience homelessness are seen as the sources of their own misfortunes, and the socio-economic policies and practices that give rise to homelessness are then too easily ignored. This abstraction, in turn, lessens the degree of urgency and commitment needed to work strategically and consistently toward solutions to end homelessness that are long-term, outcome-based, and not simply responses to crises.