A Struggling Society

Rural Poverty: Cause and Effect

Robert Tenbusch with his family at home in Sweethome Oregon. Tenbusch lost his job when Willamette Industries closed their local lumber mill and moved on the timber lands that we not depleted by poor logging practices.

Rural Poverty: Cause and Effect

Robert Tenbusch (left) scavenges firewood from the left-overs of a logging site near Sweethome Oregon . Tenbusch lost his job when Willamette Industries closed their local lumber mill.

Rural Poverty: Cause and Effect

End of the road, near Sweet Home Oregon.

Aging in America

Elder care at Volunteers of America photographed for Yes Magazine

Understanding Family Homelessness

Leonard and Angela DeClue and their four boys Jeremiah, 9, Alexander 5 and twins Sean and Darien, 2, had been homeless for many weeks spending their days at the Family and Adult Service Center in Seattle. At 8:20 each evening the family must board a city bus for a 40 minute ride to a church which provides them a place to sleep for the night. At 6:20 each morning the family is awakened and by 6:40 they are on a bus heading back to the facility downtown. From there the older children depart on another one hour bus ride to school while their parents deal with the small children and the often daunting bureaucracy faced by the homeless families in search of housing.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Angela and Leonard DeClue, (who is disabled from a long-ago agricultural accident) and their four boys, Jeremiah, 9, Alexander 5, and twins Sean and Darren, 2, became homeless after a dispute with a landlord and spent weeks in the program at the Family and Adult Service Center in Seattle, basing themselves at the FASC facility by day and sleeping on the floor of a Ballard area church at night. In early November they were accepted at the YWCA Seattle Emergency Housing facility in Seattle's central district. They can stay at this facility for one month while they seek more permanent housing. They waited in the cold winter night for a bus to get to their temporary housing

Understanding Family Homelessness

Angella DeClue comforts her sons Sean,2, and Alexander, 5. The homeless family of Leonard and Angella DeClue and their four boys Jeremiah, 9, Alexander 5 and twins Sean and Darien, 2, spend their days at the Family and Adult Service Center in Seattle. At 8:20 each evening the family must board a city bus for a 40 minute ride to a church which provides them a place to sleep for the night. At 6:20 each morning the family is awakened and by 6:40 they are on a bus heading back to the FASC facility downtown. From there the older children depart onanother one hour bus ride to school while their parents deal with thihe small children and the sometimes daunting bureaucracy faced by the homeless.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Alexander DeClue, 5, recovering from a long day of traversing Seattle by bus and the added trama of half a dozen shots and vacinations, rests in his mother's arms at the Family and Adult Service Center in downtown Seattle. The homeless family of Leonard and Angella DeClue and their four boys Jeremiah, 9, Alexander 5 and twins Sean and Darien, 2, spend their days at the Family and Adult Service Center in Seattle. At 8:20 each evening the family must board a city bus for a 40 minute ride to a church which provides them a place to sleep for the night. At 6:20 each morning the family is awakened and by 6:40 they are on a bus heading back to the FASC facility downtown. From there the older children depart onanother one hour bus ride to school while their parents deal with thihe small children and the sometimes daunting bureaucracy faced by the homeless.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Angela and Leonard DeClue, (who is disabled from a long-ago agricultural accident) and their four boys, Jeremaih, 9, Alexander 5, and twins Sean and Darren, 2, became homeless after a dispute with a landlord and spent two weeks in the program at the Family and Adult Service Center in Seattle, basing themselves at the FASC facility by day and sleeping on the floor of a Ballard area church at night. In early November they were accepted at the YWCA Seattle Emergency Housing facility in Seattle's central district. They can stay at this facility for one month while they seek more permanent housing. They were photographed at their temporary housing.

Understanding Family Homelessness

In Yakima Washington, an agricultural community 3 hours east of Seattle, a homeless woman peers through the window of the house she owned until her husband's compulsive gambling and alcohol use drove the family into bankruptcy

Understanding Family Homelessness

Homeless Iraq Vet Raises Infant Daughter. While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby's clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet. McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Homeless Iraq Vet Raises Infant Daughter. While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby's clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet. McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.

Understanding Family Homelessness

While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby's clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet. McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.

Understanding Family Homelessness

While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby's clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet. McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.

Understanding Family Homelessness

While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby's clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet. McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Homeless Family in Yakima, Washington. Lewis Price, 27, and his wife Aunika are together trying to raise her four children from previous unions. They are homeless and having a very difficult time securing housing because of a criminal record associated with Price's name -- a record he says is a case of mistaken identity.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Lewis Price, 27, and his wife Aunika, Yakima Washington, are together trying to raise her four children from previous unions. They are homeless and having a very difficult time securing housing because of a criminal record associated with Price's name -- a record he says is a case of mistaken identity.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Lewis Price, 27, and his wife Aunika, Yakima Washington, are together trying to raise her four children from previous unions. They are homeless and having a very difficult time securing housing because of a criminal record associated with Price's name -- a record he says is a case of mistaken identity.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Lewis Price, 27, and his wife Aunika are together trying to raise her four children from previous unions. They are homeless and having a very difficult time securing housing because of a criminal record associated with Price's name -- a record he says is a case of mistaken identity. Finding food they can cook in the microwave at the shelter where they were staying was a real challenge.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Rhea Eaton, in her 50s and mother of 8 children, became homeless in Colville Washington after she left her husband, who had tried unsuccessfully to establish a homestead off the grid (without water or electricity, etc) in the mountains of northeastern Washington State.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Rhae Eaton 52, a divorced mother of eight, is receiving public asistance, working part time as a child care giver and living with three of her children in a subsidized apartment in Colville Washington. For many years Eaton and her ex-husband lived in severe poverty in the mountains of northeastern Washington essentially off the grid, in tents and later rustic hay bale and log structures without running water or electricity. After her 8th child was born, another pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and suffering her husband's continued unwillingness to support the family Eaton left the marriage and moved first to Chewelah then nearby Colville. Fiercely independent and surffering from depression, she is uncomfortable with the strings attached to receiving assistance. She grows her own vegetables in the community garden.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Jesse Morgan, 20, is raising her two boys Tyrece, 6, and Austin, 3, in the small, remote community of Okanogan Washington. The family became homeless after Jesse's step father forced them to move out of the family home. Jesse was the victim of violent abuse at the hands of the men who fathered the boys.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Jesse Morgan, 20, is raising her two boys Tyrece, 6, and Austin, 3, in the small, remote community of Okanogan Washington. The family became homeless after Jesse's step father forced them to move out of the family home. Jesse was the victim of violent abuse at the hands of her husband.

Understanding Family Homelessness

Jesse Morgan, 20, became pregnant with her first child Tyrese, now 6, when she was a 14 year old middle-schooler. Her second child,Austin, now 3 1/2, was born when she was 17. Morgan, who was living in Concrete Washington, divorced her violent husband (not the father of her sons) and returned to her home town of Okanogan Washington, where she and her sons live in shelter housing. Morgan has completed a GED, is studying criminal justice at the community college and competes in rodeo events.

The Fallacy of Juvenile Detention

Benton County Washington juvenile detention facilities, Kennewick, Washington