10-15 percent of Whitfield residents may be
homeless
April 2, 2006
Daniel Bell
Dalton (GA) Daily-Citizen News
A local family that relocated to Dalton after Hurricane
Katrina recently became homeless. A school social worker
contacted the family because the children were missing a lot
of school.
The social worker referred the mother and five children to
Gaile Jennings, executive director for the Dalton-Whitfield
Community Development Corp., who went to investigate and
eventually moved the family into a shelter and had the house
they were living in condemned. The children had been missing
school because they were sick from living in a house with no
heat.
“This family was homeless because of Katrina, but now
they are still homeless because where they have been living
has been unfit,” said Teresa Sefcik, homeless education
liaison for Whitfield County Schools.
There are approximately 700 homeless or "unstably
housed" children in Whitfield County and Dalton Public
schools, says Sefcik. Unstably housed refers to families that
move several times each year.
“That doesn't include their parents, or siblings that
aren't in school, meaning that the actual number of
homelessness is much higher,” she said.
Sefcik is one of the members of the Committee on Housing
Stability who presented information concerning homelessness
in the county to the Dalton City Council recently. The
committee is a joint effort by several local government and
educational groups to address housing issues in the county.
The presentation was part of a request by the committee for
the council to join a nationwide effort led by the U.S.
Conference of Mayors to ask the U.S. Department of Urban
Development to expand the definition of homelessness. The
current definition is worded so that only those who have
nowhere to go at night are included, officials said.
“That leaves out so many people,” said Sefcik. She
said that homelessness does not begin when people are
sleeping on the street, but when a person or family loses
permanent housing.
The council voted unanimously to join the request. The
expanded definition would include those who are
"doubled-up," living in a home with multiple
families because they have nowhere else to go, and people
living in motels or shelters or other temporary housing.
"There is a homeless problem here. We need to know who
they are, because it's not just the people standing on the
street corner or pushing a cart," said Sefcik.
Jennings said between 10 and 15 percent of residents in
Whitfield County are homeless or unstably housed.
“Ten to 15 percent. That’s 10,000 to 15,000 people,
and we suspect the numbers are really much higher," she
said.
Under the current HUD definition, many people without stable
housing in Whitfield County are not considered homeless. The
wording of the current definition was part of the original
McKinney Act, passed in 1987, in response to the
"explosion" of homelessness in the early 1980s,
said Brad Paul, executive director for the National Policy
and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, a
"grassroots" organization whose primary concern is
to ensure national homelessness policy accurately reflects
the needs of local communities.
"A number of federal programs have broader definitions,
but HUD has never been changed to better reflect what
communities like Dalton are increasingly experiencing by way
of homeless families," said Paul.
In addition to the push for the HUD definition expansion, the
advocacy council is running a "Homelessness isn't
Funny" campaign, a national effort involving music and
entertainment to bring more awareness to the public. Will
Forte, an actor and writer on TV's "Saturday Night
Live," serves as the honorary chairman for that
campaign.
Now, organizations like the Committee on Housing Stability
are making presentations to their local governments in an
effort to make HUD aware of the problems in rural areas.
With the definition expanded, organizations in smaller
communities such as Dalton would be able to apply for grant
money to help solve the housing problems in their respective
locations.
"Just because we don't have people sleeping on benches
or in parks doesn't mean we don't have a problem,"
Jennings said.
Ideas for using such grant money could include building
shelters, helping families find affordable housing and
creating more low-income housing.
One of the biggest problems with the current definition, says
Sefcik, is that it does not account for children, who are
most vulnerable to the negative effects of homelessness.
"We don't want homeless children to become homeless
adults," she said.
To help bring some stability to the lives of children in the
area who are unstably housed, area schools have instituted a
program created by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance
Act, a part of the No Child Left Behind Act that ensures
educational rights and protections for children. The program
is in its first year and includes children "who lack a
fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence."
The main goal of the program is to train faculty and staff at
schools to recognize problems when they see them. Once a
child in need is identified, provisions are made to make the
school experience a positive one and to make sure the child
receives the same educational access as other students.
"The main goal of any school homeless program is to
ensure that there are no barriers to education," said
Sefcik. "Being in its first year, as the liaison, I've
spent a lot of my time talking to school staffs and answering
questions: what is the law, how do we respond, how to
recognize a homeless student, and why it's so important. For
some of these students, that six or seven hours of school
each day is the only stability they have in their lives. They
might not know if they are going to have a home at the end of
the day."
The assistance can include providing medical attention when
needed, eyeglasses, dental work, free lunch and
transportation to and from the school, even if the family
moves out of the school district.
These efforts are provided by the school system and local
resources and partially paid for through grants.
"Seeing the same faces everyday, eating lunch at the
same time, these are positive things for children who may
sleep in different beds every other week," said Sefcik,
who explained that the unofficial motto of the program is
"one child, one school, one year." She said grades
and behavior of the children improve drastically once they
become part of the program.
Local officials say the housing committee is the first of its
kind in the region and other similar organizations are
modeling their programs after this one. Representatives from
Calhoun and Catoosa County have attended recent housing
meetings.
"We're moving fast and being proactive," said
Sefcik, who notes it is important that the public be aware of
the problem. "We knew if the people of Dalton knew about
the problem here, they wouldn't stand for it. We feel like we
are putting out fires. Ultimately, the families and children
will benefit."