Part of the decrease is attributed to less accurate counting while students are learning remotely
The number of students identified as homeless in Portland Public Schools is nearly half what it was this time last year — but district officials say those numbers don’t tell the whole story. As schools reopen, they expect to see an increase attributed to more accurate counting.
On Dec. 9, the district identified 482 students as unhoused or lacking consistent shelter — down from 848 on the same date last year.
Numbers of homeless students from districts around the state are also lower this year. According to the Oregon Department of Education, 21,080 students in Oregon were identified as homeless during the 2019-2020 school year, versus 22,215 the year before.
Of those, 15,868 were sharing housing, 1,584 were in shelters, 1,114 were staying in motels and 2,514 were completely unsheltered.
Lincoln County School District — which includes several coastal communities including Newport and Lincoln City — had the highest percentage of homeless kids, with 14.22% of students in kindergarten through 12th grade, or 801 children, experiencing some form of homelessness.
In Portland, about 2.28% of students, or 1,109 at the time of the education department’s data gathering, were homeless.
There’s a mix of reasons for the downward shift, officials say, and some are positive.
For one, local and state eviction bans, along with additional coronavirus relief for those who accessed it, likely kept many families in stable housing who would have lost it otherwise.
But some of the decrease is attributed to less informal contact between students and school staff — conversations where homelessness is often identified — and some may simply be falling through the cracks.
It’s hard to know how many homeless kids have withdrawn from school, but Portland Public Schools’ total enrollment numbers are down 3.4%, meaning there were 1,552 fewer students in the school system this year than last.
Enrollment numbers were actually higher in some high school grades — there were 185 more high school juniors this year — but the number of students is dramatically lower this school year in the early grade school years.
There were 218 fewer firstgraders this year than last, for example, and kindergarten enrollment dropped the most significantly, with 518 fewer kids enrolling this year — a 16.8% drop.
It’s not clear how many of the students who didn’t re-enroll this year were homeless, or to what degree their housing status was a factor. But Street Roots spoke with several McKinney-Vento liaisons who said many families are struggling with online learning. These liaisons perform outreach to students under the umbrella of a federal program that requires data gathering and offers assistance to homeless kids.
The less expensive internet plans are “just not strong enough” to support families with several people, including families where students may be doubled up with relatives. And people also no longer have the option of going to a coffee shop or library to get online, said Kathy Gaitán, who oversees the McKinney-Vento homeless student liaison program for PPS.
And staying in contact has been hard, too.
“I have a couple of students that I’ve been chasing,” said Phoua Xiong, a McKinney-Vento liaison with the Benson, Cleveland, Lincoln and Wilson cohorts who works to connect homeless students with services.
Gaitán also noted that during the pandemic, the school district has offered some forms of support — like meals — to all families, not just those identified as unhoused or low-income. So parents may be less likely to disclose their housing status to the district.
“There’s little incentive or need for parents to identify themselves,” Gaitán told Street Roots.
But students are also often identified as homeless through less formal means, like conversations with staff — and as the district has pivoted to online learning, those informal conversations aren’t happening as often.
“That relationship with staff is really important,” said Britany Jaramillo-Lizama, a McKinney-Vento liaison for the Franklin High School cohort.
Counselors will have one-on-one meetings with students where they learn about changes at home, including changes in the housing situation; secretaries are the ones who talk to parents when they need to change their address.
“Unfortunately, we can’t rely as heavily on school staff because (families) are not really engaging as heavily,” Jaramillo-Lizama said. “That’s reflected in our numbers. That really was a huge way we would get our referrals.”
Jaramillo-Lizama said the district’s McKinney-Vento liaisons have reached out to families who were identified as homeless last year to keep them connected to whatever assistance they could offer, including help with utility bills as well as hygiene items, school supplies, shoes and coats.
While districts have limitations in how they can spend funds from the federal government’s McKinney-Vento program, PPS also received CARES Act funding for utility relief for families and has been able to provide some help with supplies through public donations.
This summer, PPS projected the number of homeless students would increase.
Gaitán said she is still expecting the numbers to go up when in-person classes start again — but until then, despite the lower case load, the work for coordinators this year is far more challenging than usual.
“Under normal circumstances, homelessness is challenging. This is where families say, ‘I can’t take this, I give up,’” Gaitán said. “It’s really hard and that’s why I think the liaisons are saying we’ve identified less homeless students, the work is harder because the challenges are harder for families.”
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