Districts cope with rising numbers of homeless students
By Ellie Ashford
01/09—When a 15-year-old boy and his 13-year-old sister went to school recently in Macomb County, Mich., they had no idea what would await them when they came home: Although their father had been laid off from a professional job a few months ago, their mother was working, and the children thought their family was getting by. They were shocked to discover their family had been evicted and was now homeless.
That’s becoming a familiar scenario across the county, as rising numbers of people are losing their homes due to foreclosure, unemployment, or related factors.
Kathy Kropf, the homeless education liaison for the Macomb Intermediate School District, which serves 21 districts in Macomb County, already has seen a sharp rise in homeless students -- 294 in just the first three months of the school year, compared to 514 during 2007-08, which was over a third more than the previous year.
What’s really heartbreaking for Kropf is seeing families she helped find permanent housing eight years ago now homeless again. In many cases, she says, families that are regularly paying rent are suddenly evicted when the landlord falls behind on mortgage payments and the property is foreclosed.
The Richland 1 School District in Columbia, S.C., is also seeing a “dramatic increase” in homeless students, says homeless coordinator Deborah C. Boone. The district already has served 315 homeless students in the first nine weeks of this school year, compared to 250 in the first half of the 2007-08 school year.
In addition to transportation, school uniforms, other clothing, and school supplies, the district provides after-school tutoring at shelters, referrals to help families with legal assistance and other services, and free voicemail for homeless families. The district links with community resources and supplements the district budget with in-kind donations.
Helping homeless families “involves a lot of complicated dynamics. There’s not a single fix,” Boone says. Many of these children are struggling academically and have behavior problems.
To raise awareness during Hunger and Homeless Week in early November, several community groups in Columbia distributed green ribbons and organized a sleep-out at a fairground.
By early November, 724 school districts across the nation already had served at least 75 percent of the homeless students they served during the entire 2007-08 school year, says Barbara Duffield, policy director at the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. Of those districts, 405 already had served the same number or more homeless students than last year.
Only 6 percent of districts receive funding under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Duffield says. An economic recovery package introduced in the Senate Nov. 17 would provide an additional $36 million for McKinney-Vento, which is currently funded at $64 million.
The act guarantees homeless students access to public education without a permanent address or proof of residency. Homeless children living in temporary quarters have the right to continue to attend their school of origin for as long as they remain homeless or for the remainder of the school year if they find permanent housing -- even if they live outside the district’s borders. The district must provide transportation if requested.
The objective is to provide stability for homeless children who tend to move frequently -- often from a motel, to a shelter, to transitional housing, and hopefully to something more permanent. Experts say students lose about six months in their education every time they change schools.
The Macomb Intermediate School District goes above and beyond the requirements of McKinney-Vento, Kropf says. Her office provides winter hats and gloves, money for transportation, backpacks full of school supplies, $60 dollar gift cards for clothing at Target, and fast food gift cards for 17 to 19-year-olds living on their own.
With shelter space maxed out, many homeless children in Macomb County double up with relatives or stay in motels, Kropf says. The county has only 157 beds in emergency shelters, while there are about 1,142 homeless people on any given night.
Even affluent areas like Fairfax County, Va., in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, are seeing an increase in homeless students. By mid-November, the district had served 1,170 homeless students, compared to 900 during the entire last school year, reports Kathi Sheffel, the district’s homeless liaison.
Transportation for homeless students is putting a huge strain on already tight budgets. The Fairfax County school district spent more than $1 million last year transporting homeless students to their schools of origin.
In an attempt “to keep their lives as normal as possible,” the district prefers using school buses to transport homeless students, Sheffel says. But her office also provides gas money for parents who want to drive their children to school and fare cards to use on public buses. The district also uses taxi cabs to transport 34 students with no other options.
Homeless students tend to be “very stressed,” Sheffel says. “They’re affected by their parents’ stress. They wonder where they’re going to live. They have trouble sleeping and don’t have a comfortable place to study.”
The district sends tutors to work with children staying in shelters, but it’s harder to reach out to families living in their cars or doubling up with relatives, she says. People often are too embarrassed to admit they are homeless and don’t ask for help. Says Sheffel: “There are many more homeless students than we know about.”
Reproduced with permission from
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