Schools Face Sharp Rise in Homeless Students

Educators Rush to Offer Help Amid Bad Economy

By Maria Glod

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The economic plunge has generated a growing wave of children nationwide who are sleeping in shelters, motels, spare bedrooms or even the family van as their parents seek to keep them in school. Educators are scrambling to help, with extra tutoring, clothes, food and cab fare.

D.C. school officials have registered about 462 homeless students this school year, twice as many as the same time last year. Schools in Fairfax County, one of the country's most affluent areas, counted 1,314 homeless students early last month, up 20 percent from the same period last year. Prince George's, Montgomery, Loudoun and Arlington counties have also reported increases.

The children are often scared, stressed or embarrassed. Marcus, a teenage PlayStation pro, rushes inside the Alexandria shelter he calls home each afternoon. Even his closest high school friends don't know his family lives there, and he does not want classmates across the street to see him going in. He misses the house his parents rented for three years, before his father lost his job as a security guard. He misses the bedroom he and his brother shared, their video game system — now in storage — even their chores.

"Everybody's got their house," said Marcus, 16, whose family shares a room at Carpenter's Shelter, home to more than 25 children. "I'm left out in that."

Schools, often the first safety net for struggling families, are emerging as a key anchor for homeless youths. In addition to their legally required free breakfasts and lunches, many schools also offer tutoring, give out backpacks and clothes, and connect families with community services. In Manassas a social worker has arranged for homeless high school students to go early to shower. Alexandria schools pay taxi fare to get 13 homeless children to school; last year they paid for seven.

The federal government spends about $64 million a year to help homeless students. Some in Congress have proposed adding up to $70 million to that in an economic stimulus package.

"One of the devastating realities and the collateral damage of the foreclosure crisis that hasn't gotten enough attention is that it affects our nation's children," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). "They get lost in the bigger picture."

By late fall, 330 school systems across the country were serving at least as many homeless students as they had the entire school year before, according to a survey by First Focus, a District-based advocacy group, and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

One Fairfax family with school-age children recently went home to find that the locks on a house they rented had been changed and a foreclosure notice was posted. In Arlington, a teenager living with her family in a van showed up at school. Her mother, who had lost her job in Connecticut, had come in search of work.

"We're getting calls every day," said Kathi Sheffel, homeless liaison for Fairfax schools. "For any child in temporary housing, it's that worry about: 'Are we going to be here tomorrow? Is my stuff going to be here tomorrow?' It's not their own place, so anything can happen."

Marcus's father, Michael, who asked that the family be identified only by first names, said that he was working in security but that his hours were cut. The utility bill went up. His smaller paycheck didn't stretch far enough. In August, the five-member family put its belongings in storage and began sharing a room in a $70-a-night hotel.

"We just got behind," said Michael, who now has a job stocking shelves at Toys R Us. "It snowballed. We knew we were going to have to leave."

Under federal law, students are considered homeless if the family has no permanent place to spend each night. Schools must immediately enroll homeless students, then work to get academic and immunization records. They also must provide free meals and pay to ferry students to school, sometimes in taxis, so they can stay with teachers and friends. When everything else is in flux, continuity at school helps youths cope.

Two years ago Maria Stephens, a single mother with three small boys, was making $80,000 as a mortgage underwriter. Early in 2007, the owner of her rental townhouse slipped into foreclosure, and Stephens had to move with little notice. That spring she was laid off from First National Bank of Arizona in Fairfax.

For months the family skipped around, living in another rental house, then with friends, then a motel. The boys left neighborhood friends behind, and their Big Wheel went into storage. In December 2007, they moved into a Reston Interfaith shelter.

In seven months there, Stephens packed the boys into the car early each school day for an hour-long drive so Efton, the oldest, could finish kindergarten at London Towne Elementary in Centreville. "I had moved so many times, that was the one thing he could hold on to that was solid," said the mother, who is planning to move to Richmond for a bank job.

In a study of students living in poverty in New York City, Pace University psychology professor Yvonne Rafferty found that those who had been homeless performed worse than the others in reading and math. Both groups struggled, but 20 percent of those who had been homeless were on grade level in reading, compared with 31 percent of other impoverished students.

Students who had been homeless also were more likely to repeat a grade and missed more days of school. Educators say it helps homeless students to stay in one school.

"Children thrive on security," Rafferty said. "For a child who is homeless, it's like having the rug pulled out from underneath you. Where you've always been standing, your stuff is gone."

For much of this school year, 9-year-old Tony Ramirez and his family shuffled from motel to motel, landing in a homeless shelter in the fall. Every day his mother, Glorybell Ramirez, and his 3-year-old brother, Ryan, would ride with him on a series of buses to Lake Anne Elementary in Reston.

"Our goal every day was to get the kids to school and back," said his father, Raymond Ramirez, who recently found a job and an apartment for the family. They knew that at school, Tony would get breakfast and lunch. The school gave the boys winter coats. Tony made friends and took up the trombone.

The scope of the problem is unclear. A federal tally of homeless students nationwide won't occur until the school year ends, and outreach efforts are uneven. Many families don't seek help because they don't know it is available, don't want to be labeled homeless or fear that their children will be taken away.

But on the ground, the increase is apparent. Montgomery County school officials said they identified 418 homeless students by mid-December, a rate that puts the number on pace to exceed last school year's total of 618. In Clark County, Nev., which has one of the nation's highest foreclosure rates, schools started the academic year with 1,453 homeless students, compared with 826 in fall 2007. By the end of October, the total more than doubled, to about 3,300.

A few months ago single mother Aprille Shirley, 36, was living with her five children and two grandchildren in a cozy house she bought in a Cincinnati suburb. Her job at a Kroger grocery store brought in enough money to pay the mortgage, but monthly bills jumped. Food cost more. So did gas. Soon she was unable to make payments.

In November Shirley's home was foreclosed on. She packed up her family and went to a shelter. Her daughters — ages 8, 13 and 15 — and 10-year-old son missed a few days of school because she had no car to drive them.

Routines such as doing homework at the kitchen table each evening were disrupted. The family had to give up is dog.

"I'm just stressing out, just crying uncontrollably," Shirley said. "My 13-year-old, she just cried. She didn't want to leave the house."

Tagged: budget, dc, Northern Virginia

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