Unified program assists homeless students
By Brent Killackey
Racine (WI) Journal Times
January 27, 2006
About one out of every 25 students in the Racine Unified School District is homeless.
That's at least one way of looking at the participation numbers from the Families in Transition Program, which provides services to those homeless students, according to program coordinator Elizabeth Erven.
The FIT program started four years ago, serving 207 students its first year, Erven said. The number of participants has jumped each year, reaching approximately 450 and 650 homeless students in the second and third years, respectively. Racine Unified has approximately 21,000 students.
By Dec. 16, 911 students had been brought to the program. Erven estimated that at least 30 more students have been identified since that point, and breaking 1,000 in the coming weeks seems assured.
Each year's numbers include existing homeless students and those students added to the program.
"The thing that's so shocking to people is there are so many (homeless) kids," Erven said.
"I would like to think more people are finding out about it," Erven said about the increase in numbers. But she suspects other factors are at play, too: "The bottom line is poverty is reaching critical mass."
The FIT program's numbers don't align with official census data on homelessness, which determined last year there were 276 homeless people, including 47 children, living in Racine County. The difference occurs because the FIT program's definition of a homeless student - coming from a federal law designed to protect the rights of homeless students - is different from the definition and counts used by other government agencies, such as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For the purposes of the FIT program, a homeless child or youth is age four to 21 who is:
* Living doubled-up with others because they have no choice and lack a permanent nighttime residence.
* Have no lease, rent or ownership of property.
* Staying in shelters, motels/hotels, parks, abandoned buildings, awaiting foster placement or adjudication.
Participants range from families living out of cars or at shelters to families staying with relatives because they have no residence of their own. A few of the refugees from Hurricane Katrina were assisted by this program.
"HUD does not recognize double-up living (as homeless)," said Dan Kramer, who in addition to overseeing other district educational programs serves as the school district's homeless liaison, a position required by DPI.
The McKinney-Vento Act, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, required public school systems to create assistance programs for homeless students.
Kramer serves as Erven's boss, hiring her to run the FIT program with state grant money. This year, the grant provided $86,000 in funding. Donations of cash and supplies supplemented that amount. As numbers have increased, the cash has been stretched, Erven said.
"Now it's like triage," she said.
This spring, the district will apply for another three-year grant, although declines in federal funding for these programs will likely spell less grant money, Erven said.
The FIT program advocates for the students and helps them with everything from obtaining records and enrolling in free breakfast and lunch programs to tutoring programs and referrals to other social service agencies.
Sometimes, the program helps provide families with temporary shelter, like funding an emergency stay at a motel if the area homeless shelters are full.
"We have a huge need for housing," Kramer said.
Students in the FIT program are allowed to remain at their original school regardless of their current residence.
"Our big goal is to remove the barriers (to education)," Kramer said.