When Oregon’s education department releases its K-12
homeless student count later this month, the report will show a disturbing
trend: their numbers aren’t coming back down from peak recession levels.
Nearly 20,000 students in Oregon’s schools were considered
homeless during the 2013-14 school year, the latest state records show.
Federal education guidelines define homelessness as not
having access to a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, which
includes those students who temporarily share housing with another family. This
is a broader definition than the one used by the federal housing department,
which recently reported that the number of homeless families nationwide has
gone down. Prominent advocates have challenged that statement, quoting the
rising numbers of homeless students around the country.
The most-recent count in Oregon schools is virtually
unchanged from those taken over the last five years. It suggests that last
year’s drop in homeless student numbers — by about 1,000 statewide — likely was
an aberration caused by a new counting method.
This means that Oregon has twice as many homeless youths in
its schools as it did 10 years ago. In the 2004-05 school year, barely more
than 10,000 Oregon students were counted as being homeless. That number climbed
steadily but slowly until the recession hit, when it jumped to about 19,000,
state records show.
And that is where it has stayed since.
The rise from 2004 to 2008 probably was due to a combination
of factors including overall population growth in the state and stricter
federal requirements for schools to detect which of their students are
homeless, said Dona Bolt, the state coordinator for Oregon’s homeless education
program.
But the bump between 2008 and 2010 surely is a result of the
recession.
“During the recession, we had a definite increase in
clientele who had never dealt with poverty before,” said Lisa Mentesana, the
homeless liaison for the Beaverton School District. Other school employees
around the metro area echoed that sentiment.
And the numbers haven’t gone back down. Beaverton now is one
of four districts in the state that has more than 1,200 homeless students
enrolled. The other three are Portland, Reynolds and Medford, Bolt said. Having
four districts with such high statistics is a first in state history, she said.
Data requested by Street Roots from Portland-area districts
under public-records law show that most urban and suburban districts here have
about as many homeless students now as they did toward the end of the
recession. The only local districts with significant reductions in homeless numbers
over that time are small and rural.
The numbers provided by the local districts include some
kids who are counted twice as they move across boundaries. The state will find
these double-counts, which is why next week’s numbers are bound to be just
slightly lower than those included in this story.
But behind these trends and numbers lie real hardships for
real kids — and the economic future of whole Portland neighborhoods.
Barriers to education
Isabel went to Beaverton schools her whole life. But she was
homeless during her last four years in the district. When Isabel was 15, her
parents split up and her mother took her to live with an aunt. But living in
such close quarters proved too volatile and the teenage girl ended up having to
fend for herself. She stayed on friends’ couches, always worried how long each
arrangement would last.
“I wasn’t able to focus on school,” Isabel said. “My
problems were so overwhelming.”
She was struggling in her classes. Graduation seemed less
and less likely.
It’s a common pattern for homeless students, said Julie
Barbour, who’s been teaching in a high-poverty Portland neighborhood for 22
years. Homeless students often have trouble sticking to one task for a long
time, she said. Because homeless families move around a lot, the kids may go to
many different schools.
“They wonder, ‘How long am I going to be here?’” Barbour
said.
This affects their social skills. And their previous school
may have had a slightly different curriculum. Homeless students have many more
barriers to education than do students with stable housing, Barbour said.
“It’s really hard to learn when you have so much else you’re
thinking about,” said Molly Frye, a social worker in the Reynolds School
District, which has the highest percentage of homeless students in the
tri-county area.
“These kids ask themselves, ‘When school gets out, where am
I going; is my family OK? What are we going to eat tonight?’” Frye said.
Education statistics bear out these observations. Homeless
students pass state tests at about two-thirds the rate of the general student
population. For example, about 63 percent of all students passed their math
tests in the 2012-13 school year in Oregon, according to state records. Only
about 39 percent of homeless students did.
Schools provide extra resources for these children, inside
and outside of the classroom. The wall opposite from Frye’s desk at Reynolds
Middle School is lined with metal shelves holding cans of food. Every Friday,
about 85 families come in for supplies, Frye said.
Schools Uniting Neighborhoods — or SUN — is a network of
support services managed by Multnomah County. It has sites at 80 schools in the
county. Christine Rhoney runs the site at an elementary school in the Lents
neighborhood. Many families there have to choose between paying rent, paying
utilities or feeding their children, Rhoney said. She runs a food bank at the
school.
“At least we’ll help you feed your kids,” Rhoney said.
Beaverton has food banks at its schools, Mentesana, the
homeless liaison there, said. The district, like others, also offers school
supplies to high-poverty and homeless students. It holds clothing drives.
And in the classroom, there are special support services.
Homeless students are given extra time to graduate. Districts must direct part
of their federal dollars designated for low-income children to support homeless
students.
But that money — called Title I funds — isn’t enough in the
highest-poverty schools, said Barbour. Students from very low-income families,
including homeless students, often arrive in kindergarten with limited learning
experience. This means they need more attention from teachers.
“But we have 30 or more kids in some kindergarten classes,”
Barbour said. “The Title I money is too little.”
Investing in education is an effective way to break the
cycle of poverty that can begin as early as preschool, experts say.
Low-wage jobs
A look at the Oregon economy can provide at least a partial
explanation for homeless-student numbers that jumped during the recession and
never came back down.
“It’s not low-income folks and not homeless folks who have
recovered (since the recession),” said Mary Li, a division manager at the
Multnomah County Department of Human Services in Portland.
There has been a steady rise in homeless families in
Multnomah County, with no reductions after the end of the recession, Li said.
One explanation: The jobs that were added since the
recession were mostly at the top and bottom ends of the salary range, according
to a report by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis earlier this year.
There has been growth in the market for management
positions, according to the report. Engineers and designers also are in demand.
These are jobs that typically require college degrees and experience — out of
immediate reach of most low-income families.
The two fastest-growing job sectors overall were personal
care and agriculture. These jobs pay around $20,000 per year, according to the
state report.
The report describes a “polarization” of the Oregon job
market: medium-wage jobs lost in the recession are replaced in part by
higher-wage jobs that require college degrees, or — more often — by
minimum-wage jobs.
But a family currently has to earn nearly $37,000 per year
to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the Portland area, according to an April
report by the county’s Department of Human Services. A minimum-wage earner
would have to work 80 hours a week to make that kind of money, the county
report said.
Part of the solution prescribed by the state economist who
prepared the jobs report is to raise the overall education level of Oregon
workers. This doesn’t necessarily mean getting a college degree, but it does
mean finishing high school and going through additional job training.
The report also includes Portland maps with areas of job
losses and high poverty marked in color. Not surprisingly, the darkest colors —
the most poverty — are found in the areas with high percentages of homeless
students.
Not having a place to do homework and being hungry, these
students will have a hard time rising to the ranks of high-wage earners, which
means they — and their children — may one day wonder where they’ll sleep that
night.
Programs work
All of Oregon shares $480,000 of federal money specifically
earmarked for homeless students, said Bolt, the state coordinator. The state’s
197 districts can apply for 10 grants out of that money in a highly competitive
process.
Beaverton shares one $60,000 grant with three other
districts in Washington County.
“It’s not much,” said Mentesana, the district liaison. “But
you know what? It really helps.”
It sure helped Isabel. One day, a teacher put her in touch
with Mentesana. Years later, Isabel started crying over the memory of that day.
“It was the best feeling in the world because I felt like
someone cared,” Isabel said.
She got the extra help and graduated, even if it was a year
late. She worked for a couple years to save up some money and this fall
enrolled at Portland Community College.
“My youth has been sucked up,” Isabel said. “But it’s the
best feeling that I’m going to school now.”
This article appears in 2014-11-07.