Invisible Children: Working Around the Stigma of Homelessness
- Backpack Brigade
- May 7
- 3 min read
If you’ve been following Backpack Brigade for a while, you might have noticed that we don’t feature firsthand stories from the children we serve. Unlike other charitable organizations working to alleviate poverty and homelessness, Backpack Brigade never comes face-to-face with our own “clients.” Indeed, we don’t even know who they are. The schools who request our bags for their students keep their identities confidential, because the stigma of homelessness and food insecurity can have deep impacts on kids and their long-term outcomes.
Students are identified by their schools and recommended for services under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (MKV).[1] The MKV defines homelessness for children and guarantees their right to the same educational opportunities as housed students. Many of these kids are on their own, termed “unaccompanied minors,” a phrase that doesn’t begin to describe the fear, violence, and insecurity that they are fleeing. Some are in foster care; some are runaways; some have been kicked out for being different than their families are willing to accept (this is especially true for LBGT+ kids).[2] Despite considerable challenges, these kids are still in school, still hanging onto the hope of a better future, but they are relying heavily on the school to meet many of their basic needs – including access to food.
Not all homeless children are alone. Many have parents who are facing their own personal challenges: domestic violence, mental illness, drug dependence, disability, to name just a few. The family is homeless, living in shelters, or cars, or – more commonly – living in a relative’s spare bedroom while they get their feet back under them. While the kids living in these circumstances endure the instability of their family’s struggles to secure regular housing, they continue to go to school, where they can count on regular meals to give them the energy and nutrition they need to make it through the school day.
What both groups of kids have in common is that, all too frequently, school meals are the only regular food they receive. Evenings and weekends are hungry times defined by food insecurity and scarcity. Organizations like Backpack Brigade are there to fill the gap, but we do it anonymously.
Why? Because kids don’t want to be different from their peers. Stigma associated with homelessness leads to lower self-esteem, behavioral challenges, poor school attendance, and inadequate access to educational opportunities, healthcare, and employment (for older kids).[3] As such, it makes sense to protect students experiencing homelessness by keeping the details of their living situations confidential. However, the downside of confidentiality is the risk of falling through the cracks, becoming invisible and therefore even more vulnerable.
So, we don’t tell their stories individually. We tell them as statistics, sets of numbers that only hint at the desperation experienced by nearly 40,000 children in Washington State every year. Our rosters are lists of numbers, not names: one hundred bags at a certain elementary school in downtown Seattle. Fifty bags at a middle school across town. Another 25 bags at a high school in Renton. Over 100 schools, over 5,100 bags per week. Though they are numbers on paper, we never forget that there is a face – small, hungry, vulnerable – behind that number. We’ll never show it here, but we keep it in mind every day as we raise more funds, pack more bags, and drive more delivery routes, hoping that one day in the future, that number will be zero.
Right now, we have a waitlist of 204 students hoping to receive a bag of food this weekend. Rising costs and economic instability are affecting hundreds of students, and we need help to make sure they’re all fed. Become a monthly donor today and you will make a big difference in one kid’s life.
[1] National Center for Homeless Education, The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. https://nche.ed.gov/legislation/mckinney-vento/
[2] Le H, Rew L. Youth-centered Recommendations to Address Social Stigma and Discrimination Against Unhoused Youth: An Integrative Literature Review. J Sch Nurs. 2025 Feb;41(1):36-55. doi: 10.1177/10598405231214061. Epub 2023 Nov 22. PMID: 37994006; PMCID: PMC11755975.
[3] Aratani Y. (2009). Homeless children and youth: Causes and consequences. National Center for Children in Poverty. https://www.nccp.org/publication/homeless-children-and-youth-causes-and-consequences/
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