More high schoolers homeless

October 19, 2009 • Savanna Jones  
Filed under News

On the radio, on TV and in everyday conversation, we often hear the phrase, “With the economy the way it is nowadays…”

The weak economy is a huge factor in all of our lives, whether we would like to admit it or not.

For some, it is merely a thought in the back of their heads.  But for many the weakened economy is a harsh reality resulting in serious situations.

When people lose their jobs, they often cannot pay their mortgages and, almost inevitably, their homes are pushed into foreclosure, leaving the families homeless.

According to a survey done in 2008 by the Oregon Department of Education, nearly 624 students in the Central Oregon area were homeless (students living in hotels, shelters, vehicles or outdoors).

This number has increased by almost five percent since 2008.  That makes 709 out of 15,837 students homeless.

Nearly 4.5 percent of the students in the Bend La Pine School District are homeless.  The Oregon Department of Education shows that the Bend La Pine School District has the highest percent of homeless students in the entire central Oregon area.

The economy has turned 180 degrees on families who used to be doing well, in the respect that they could provide for themselves and their children.  Dana Arnston, the Federal Services Director, said in an interview with the Bend Bulletin, “What we’ve seen is families that were making it economically before who now aren’t.”

Arnston says that families who once donated to the Family Access Network, a local non-profit organization, are now depending on the assistance that FAN offers.

Some of FAN’s services include dental work, job opportunities, health care, insurance and clothing.

Many administrators are worried that school will no longer be a priority for homeless students.

Although school is an extremely important part of everyone’s lives, the fear of not knowing where you will spend the night takes precedent to worrying what your test score will be on Monday.

School officials are well aware of this problem and are trying to help out as much as they can with their limited resources.  Free lunches are offered to students, which can help out enormously.

The McKinney-Vento Act, passed in January 2002 under No Child Left Behind, says that all students will have equal rights to a public education. Chrissi Wright, Summit’s FAN representative, said that under the McKinney-Vento Act, students who change districts due to homelessness will be bussed or transported to the school they first attended to establish a stable environment.

When the Summit staff finds out that students are homeless they make sure they help them in the most comfortable as possible.

“Confidentiality is huge,” Wright said about the process.

Before Wright talks to anyone else she works with, she asks the students if she can use their names or if they would like to keep it confidential.

Wright says that a lot of services are provided from the Assistance League, a national non-profit organization.  The Assistance League provides clothes and school supplies.

Tools for Schools, another non-profit organization, takes anonymous donations from around the community and distributes the donated goods to local students.

Bend’s local news station, KTVZ, had an article on their website that included an interview with a homeless student in Central Oregon.  About her and her family’s situation, she said, “We had to stay in our van, so we are all like trying to find a place in our van at night.”

She went on to say that she received a new backpack and some school supplies from Project Help, a local organization that assists students with school related issues.

The website www.projectconnectco.org is considered a “one-stop-shop” for all the services that are available to central Oregonians in need, according to Julianne Repman, the Communications Director for the Bend-La Pine Schools.  Some of these services include free books through the Deschutes Public Library’s “Book Buggy” and eye exams and glasses through the Lion Vision Van.

Homeless students come in all shapes and sizes–there is no definite way to identify them.

“The face of homelessness doesn’t have a typical look anymore,” Wright said.  “[Many] middle to upper class, privileged kids, are in fact homeless.  It’s covert.”

“Every poor kid thinks they’re the only poor kid,” Wright said.