Patty Murray: “I actually became interested in the issue of homeless children, foster children many years ago when I served in our…”

“I actually became interested in the issue of homeless children, foster children many years ago when I served in our State legislature and found out, quite by accident, that students in our State were being denied access to public schools simply because they didn't have an address. I never thought about it before. Everybody goes and their mom registers them for school and they write their address down and they register and start school with a big smile on their face. In my home State many years ago, not if you were a homeless student. So I passed legislation in our State legislature to make sure that students who did not have an address would be allowed access to any school to which they applied. I followed that throughout my career and met amazing young people who have tremendous capabilities who, through circumstances that had nothing to do with them, were either homeless or were foster children.”