When I was a child, my world was my home, my neighborhood, and my school.

Then we moved almost 400 miles away when I was 12 years old. I remember walking to school, on unfamiliar streets, to a new classroom with a new teacher and filled with kids that I didn’t know.

It was February, and all of those kids had been together since September. Most of them had been together since first grade.

I remember being unsure of what to do almost every moment of the day. School is a generic term, but each school is different. They each have their own culture, the unspoken rules that it takes awhile to learn. Eventually, I learned the rules, and I found lifelong friends.

My experience isn’t unique; families move and children cope. Most children are resilient and most parents have the ability to support their children through the move. And, while we Americans like to think of ourselves as adventurers, most people don’t really move too far from where they started out. And most move toward opportunity or for a better home.

But for some children and their families, moving isn’t about opportunity, or the house of their dreams. Some families move because the rent is too high and the parent simply can’t stretch the dollars enough to cover all of the costs.

Maybe they were OK for a while, but their hours were cut, or the car broke down, or their child care arrangement fell through. So those kids have many more first days in a new school — learning the rules, unsure every moment and losing ground.

There used to be a maxim that you shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of your income on housing. For homeowners, after a stretch at the beginning, owning a home is an opportunity to start building equity and have access to a tax deduction. Very few low- and middle-income people can buy a home on what they earn. But for those who can, it is a key building block to financial security.

For renters, the outlook is much more dire. In western Massachusetts, 52 percent of renters exceed the 30 percent guideline, and over 30 percent of renters are paying more than 50 percent of their income on rent.

The average income for renters in our region is $28,000 per year. Nationally, less than a quarter of eligible low-income renters receive any sort of housing subsidy and there is no reason to believe that there are more subsidies in our region.

It’s simple math — the numbers tell the story. The rents are too high and the salaries are too low. And children pay the price. Families are evicted and scramble to find a place to stay.

While the commonwealth is required to shelter families if they have nowhere to go, shelter living is tremendously difficult for children and families. Massachusetts has worked hard to reduce the number of families in motels and has increased the state’s investment in affordable housing but the problem is far from solved.

The impacts of chronic homelessness on children are stark. Lower school achievement, behavioral issues and dropping out are all possible outcomes for children who have more than two bouts of homelessness. And, because homelessness is a result of poverty, children may also be hungry, or suffer from poverty-related health conditions, or live in dangerous neighborhoods.

Family homelessness is not a crisis, it is a soul-crushing chronic condition created largely by the dramatic rise in income inequality, and federal disinvestment in housing that began in the Ronald Reagan years of the 1980s.

The current administration signaled that it has no desire to work toward easing the pain when Dr. Ben Carson was appointed as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was a brilliant brain surgeon but this isn’t brain surgery — it’s harder.

If we want to cure the condition, it starts with livable wages and housing that is affordable. It requires all communities to welcome affordable housing. It requires that schools get the support they need to effectively work with children who have been traumatized by homelessness.

It means that, even in the absence of a compassionate federal government, here on the commonwealth we elect leaders who will commit to building safe and affordable homes, safe neighborhoods, and excellent schools for all children, especially children who need them the most. It also means that they will be honest about the costs, both in taxes and in lost opportunities for the next generation of children.

It’s an election year. The governor and legislators are all on the ballot. And there will be new names on the ballot too. What are they going to do?

Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.