CHILDREN ARE VICTIMIZED BY MOTHER'S DRUG ARREST

It was the kind of story newspapers typically run around the
holidays. And it elicited the typical response.

A year ago at Thanksgiving, we used the story of Leigh Lawson and her
two children to begin an ongoing series examining the problem of
homelessness in our community. The story focused on Alisia, Lawson's
then 11-year-old daughter.

The family was living at the Salvation Army shelter. The other kids on
her school bus teased Alisia when she got off every day at the
shelter. Readers rejoiced when, despite long odds, Alisia won election
as school treasurer at Alta Vista Elementary.

Readers so connected to Alisia and her family that they showered the
children with Christmas gifts that year ­ Gameboys, a scooter, boxes
of clothes and stuffed animals. After the paper wrote that the family
had moved into a rental home with the help of three local agencies,
readers donated furniture, pots and pans, and food.

As I said, the response was fairly typical. I've written and edited
many stories about homeless families or children in need through the
years, and readers almost always reach out to help.

It seemed like such a happy ending to a sad story.

Last month, reporter Jill Barton wrote about the Lawsons again. Leigh
Lawson had been arrested on charges of child neglect. According to
police, Lawson had been leaving Alisia and her 10-year-old brother,
Anthony, home alone with their 3-month-old sister while she used crack
cocaine and other drugs.

That happy Christmas was nothing but a distant memory for these
children. Now, they had been separated from each other and placed in
foster care. They weren't even attending Alta Vista any more, the one
place in their lives where they had found some stability.

When City Editor Deb Winsor and Jill came into my office to tell me
that Lawson had been arrested, I put my head in my hands. Those poor
kids, I thought.

And when Deb asked where the story should run, I didn't hesitate. It
had to go on the front page, just as the original story had, just as
the story about their happy Christmas had.

It would have been easy for us to have walked away from the Lawson
family a year ago, feeling good about what our journalism had
accomplished for them. And readers would have been left with the warm
and glowing picture of how we'd all helped this family.

The help was real, and so was that feeling of warmth. But this part of
the story is real, too, and it reflects the larger issue we've been
trying to illuminate through our coverage of homelessness.

The problem is so big, so long-standing, so intractable that it is
difficult to know how to approach it. The homeless include innocent
children like Alisia and her brother. They include alcoholics and drug
addicts and less-than-savory characters who frighten us or make us
turn away.

There are lots of agencies and dedicated individuals working in our
community to make a difference in the lives of the homeless. In
addition to stories, the Herald-Tribune is trying to make a difference
as a company through its Season of Sharing program. The most recent
Season of Sharing campaign, during the 2001 holidays, raised $179,317
in reader contributions that will go as emergency assistance to help
families in dire need.

Yet for all these efforts, the problem stays with us. Solutions aren't
easy, or universally agreed upon.

Our job as journalists has been to document the problem: to show
readers the many faces of homelessness in the community, to write
about programs here and elsewhere that seem to be helping, to count
the cost of homelessness to our community in money and lost human potential.

Now, we are taking the next step. We're bringing together community
leaders and experts on homelessness to talk about approaches that
might help to ease it.

If you have a question for the experts, we'd like to hear about
it.

Please fax your questions and comments to 957-5276 or mail them to
Homeless Talk, Herald-Tribune, P.O. Box 1719, Sarasota, FL 34230.