“A homeless count last week in Los Angeles likely missed many children under five who are often hidden from view and yet are among the most impacted by their homelessness.” -KPCC
One night while online, I read this intro to an article on the
KPCC website. My entire world immediately stopped.
When we think of a homeless person, we often think of a middle-aged or old man, unshowered, often with a mental illness such as schizophrenia and a drug addition. We don’t think about a 4-year-old child or even a high school
student applying to college.
That’s why I chose to delve into this issue and do my
own reporting on it.
I met a girl at UCLA named Angela who was once homeless. Her mother
struggled with mental illness. Her father had to take time off work to take
care of her mother and her as a child. When he went back to work, the his
particular job of designing with a pencil, the field had moved to a computer and unfortunately he didn’t
know how to learn that skill. Her parents divorced when she was 11 and when the
recession hit in 2007, they lost their home. They motel hopped until her
dad’s credit ran out. By her 17th birthday, in her junior year of
high school, they were moving from shelter to shelter.
As previously mentioned, children are often overlooked when it comes to the topic of homelessness, but they are among the most impacted. They are in the most critical time for building the most important foundation of success for the rest of their lives: education.
As previously mentioned, children are often overlooked when it comes to the topic of homelessness, but they are among the most impacted. They are in the most critical time for building the most important foundation of success for the rest of their lives: education.
The Homeless Education Consultant from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Melissa Schoonmaker, says that there are 67,000 children in Los Angeles County in the same situation that Angela was, homeless. That’s 22% of the
entire population of homeless children in the US. Out of 50 states, that's an extremely high
percentage for just one city.
LA County is comprised of 80 school districts, each one with a certain number of homeless children and each one trying to help that child stay in school and get a quality education.
LA County is comprised of 80 school districts, each one with a certain number of homeless children and each one trying to help that child stay in school and get a quality education.
The initial biggest issue for school districts is identifying
which children are homeless. The state definition is broad. Under the McKinney-VentoAct, a child is homeless if they are sleeping in a place that is not meant to
be slept in, such as an office or garage, and if they are living doubled or
tripled up with relatives or other family members. However, under the Urban Housing and Development laws, a child is homeless if they are on the streets or
in a shelter. Therefore, it is difficult to help families and children with federal assistance.
The next biggest issue is reaching the children and their families. In Angela’s case, she
didn’t tell any of her faculty or teachers. She didn’t want anyone to know
because she says school was her escape. School was where she got to be the
smart one and looked up to. Pride and social stigmas play a large role in hindering families from accepting help. Angela didn't have wifi or even a printer at the shelters, but she never wanted special treatment from her teachers. She would try to get all of her homework done whenever she had internet access and she would get to school early to print. When it came to applying for college and scholarships, she would call her friends and dictate her essays to them over the phone.
The biggest
and most prominent issue for school districts is funding. As I mentioned, LA County holds 22% of the
homeless children population, but it is very far from 22% of the nation's
funding. School districts are funded by the government. The state of California
gets very little money from the US government and that money is then
distributed amongst school districts in various counties. The question is, how
do they choose which districts get money? It’s not based on the number of
homeless they have in their schools or the average income of the residents—it’s
based off of who writes the best applications for grants. Schoonmaker says it
depends on what they say they will use the money for, how they’ve used money
before and how past use of funds has worked for them/improved the education of
homeless children.
The
bottom line here: Out of 80 school districts in Los Angeles County, the state
of California only gave out grants to SIX SCHOOLS— and that’s 6 schools not
districts.
Schools
districts rely on any help they can get to keep homeless children in school and
give them a fair chance at a good education and really, just making it to high
school graduation. Schoonmaker
says that statistics show a homeless student may start high school, but the
numbers drop as they get into 10th, 11th, and 12th
grade. She says when
school is too hard for a child and education is their last priority-- compared
to priorities like worrying about their next meal and where they’re going to sleep
that night, they end up dropping out of school.
Lisa
Nunes, a middle school principal in Torrance, says that kids who don’t have a
permanent home and have been moved around either in foster care or shelters,
often have major gaps in their education. When kids show up at a certain
school, the school places them in a grade level based on their age—not where
they stand academically. This has a significant affect on their entire
education. Nunes says many times it's difficult to figure out what the child
learned at previous schools and has to place them in classes, hoping that
teachers will work together to help that child. This reminds me of the movie
The Blind Side, where Michael Oher was placed in high school, but was
functioning at an elementary level of academia.
Nunes says her school’s approach to this issue is putting the children in a class similar to study hall where a teacher can help students in that
same grade level one on one. She also says that when teachers collaborate and
work with a student to help them excel, they do better. As EduNation Revolution
has touched on, teachers should have heart. Nunes originally became a teacher because
she wanted to make school a safe place for children. Just by talking to her, you can really tell that she has a passion for the kids' education and personal
development-- and she really has dedicated her career to helping children succeed.
While
schools do their best to provide an equal education to all students and prepare
them for success in life, the system just doesn’t make it easy.
The
homeless liaison for the ABC School District, Tim Catlin, says that he and many
other districts pull on all the resources they can get.
This past
Friday, Feed The Children donated boxes of goods to the county to be
distributed between districts and given out to the homeless children at the
schools. The boxes contained things like backpacks, school supplies, snacks,
and Disney books. Donations like these are what help children have the chance
at fitting in with their peers and staying current with the curriculum.
Angela says she wouldn’t have even made it UCLA if it weren’t
for a nonprofit tutor that she had at her homeless shelter. He was from School On Wheels, which sends tutors to help homeless children who can’t stay
after school to get the help they need because they have to be at the shelter
by check-in time to secure their bed space. Angela's tutor got her through calculus
AP and even took her to his college, where she saw a college campus for the
first time. She says he inspired her dreams of going to UCLA and made her believe she could do it.
There are many other nonprofits that donate goods to schools, give
grants, and provide a safe get-away for homeless children. However, not every
child ends up at UCLA like Angela. I think the system could use so much more help and innovation--from the
government to the districts, even to the people who have money and are willing
to help, but don’t know how. If this issue became as prominent in the media as
ALS has, maybe more children could have a chance at graduating and pursing
careers to break the cycle of homelessness.
