Good Article on Homeless Students

Columbus Homeless School Children Increasing

The Dispatch did a nice piece this week on the rise in students who become homeless during the school year. Cleveland had an incredible increase in students in the 2007 to 2008 school year, but we have small increases over the past year.   The number of students in Ohio has increased by 70% since 2006.  The stats from the school district are a valuable tool to look at homelessness in the community.  They do not depend on the number of shelter beds like the homeless stats released by HUD do.  The definition is broad, but easily understandable compared to the definition used by HUD.  And every school district is using the same definition for the past 20 years, and they all must submit data for the school year to the state of Ohio.  The numbers listed in the report in the Columbus Dispatch for Cleveland are different from the numbers I have for the district.  They list 1,123 homeless students for Cleveland, but the graph does not indicate what time frame this is for.  I have 2,275 homeless children from July 2010 to January 2011 within the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.  I have 2,567 for the 2009 to 2010 school year (July 2009 to June 2010).  

But the story does show the huge growth in homeless children in Columbus.  I think that it points to the problem that many cities took their eye off the ball for the past six years especially Columbus.  They focused all their money and staffing on working on long term homeless people and the other programs withered on the vine without a safety net.  Instead of trying to solve homelessness for everyone and trying to reduce the population across the board, they put all their money on one sub-group thus making other sub-groups see their resources decrease and numbers grow.   There is so much pent up demand for housing, jobs, and social services that if you put all your cities resources on one population, all the other groups needing help grows.   Also, if you pay attention only to shelter numbers and the count that HUD does every year, you miss trends in the community.  There are a limited number of shelter beds in the community, and we do not create new beds based on increasing demand.  So, if the family population grows because more people are out of work, the shelters are often the last to know about this trend.  The schools are often the first to know about what is happening with families.

The story on 60 Minutes two weeks ago about homelessness in Florida had a similar message. We should pay more attention to the numbers from the schools.  They say a great deal about trends and issues facing the homeless populations.  It was interesting that the Dispatch quoted a Groveport school official who said that January and February are the worst times for a rise in homeless children.  That is not my experience, which shows a sharp increase in homelessness in May and June after school lets out, but that is not something that the schools would be able to track.  The other piece of information not in the article is the near collapse of the Cincinnati Homeless Child and Youth project.  This was one of the premiere school programs in the United States until a couple of years ago, and it has fallen on hard times with massive budget cuts.  There was a scathing report about the Cincinnati school districts efforts to meet the requirements to get children re-rolled within 24 hours of their family becoming homeless.

We should mention the fantastic program we have in Cleveland, and the massive undertaking of serving all the Cleveland Metropolitan School District children.  Project ACT does a great job in serving all the children living in shelters or on sofas throughout the community.    If a child's family falls into homelessness and the child was a student of CMSD or migrated to Cleveland to seek shelter, we can be assured that the staff at Project ACT will move heaven and earth to get that child back into school.  They will cut through the bureaucracy to get them back into their school of origin or place them in a new school if that is what the parent wants for their child.   It is a huge undertaking, but Project ACT has always done a great job with this transitory population.  During the time of homelessness, which must seem like a hurricane hitting the family to a child, it is nice to have the stability of school for the young person.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Grading the Administration 23

Weekly Grades of the Administration on Poverty: C

It was a holiday week from June 29 to July 5, 2009 plus there were two foreign trips. One by Vice President Biden to Iraq and the President traveled to Russia at the end of the week so attention was focused on international affairs. There were a few things that happened that could have a positive impact on homelessness and poverty. They include:

1. Again there was more talk about health care reform including a town hall on July 1, 2009. This, as always, gets the grade up to a D as a starting point.
   
2. It was announced that the Department of Education is working to simplify the Financial Aid Application for college--a good step to help more people afford higher education.
3. There was a "Making Home Affordable" tour including a HUD announcement to make the eligibility broader so that more people can take advantage of the program. More borrowers should be able to join the program in order to avoid foreclosure.
   
4. This does not have much to do with poverty, but it is helpful. They posted the salaries of everyone working in the White House on the site. So, by the way, Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emanuel both Special Assistants to the President make $172,200 while those poor souls who have to read the mail as correspondence assistants make only $36,000. I like having this information easily available.
   
5. They also posted more stories about how the stimulus dollars are working including a story about Youthbuild in Louisville Kentucky.
   
6. There was more discussion in the weekly address about continuing the effort to reform education.
   
7. Finally, HUD announced the tax credits awarded to 26 states to address affordable housing needs in the local community. Ohio taxes advantage of the tax credit program, and Cuyahoga County gets a piece of the $1 billion released during the week.

So, for these reasons the administration gets a C for the week during these dog days of summer.
Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Grading the Administration 11

Weekly Grades for the Obama Administration on Poverty: D

This was a rough week to give a score, because nearly all the work of the administration involved international and foreign policy. I had to dig deep to find anything that had to do with poverty coming out of the executive branch this week. I would give an Incomplete for lack of any work done, but the administration is bigger then just the President. So, I looked at what the various departments are doing and found a few things that will help, but it is scarce. This week we have to give the Administration a D for their work on poverty.

The G-20 did approve a large allocation to fight poverty in developing countries. How can we get Detroit and Cleveland to qualify as a developing nation? The department of Health and Human Services is sending out billions to improve Head Start. This is no doubt a program that helps lower income children with proven success. They are also announcing the increase in rural health clinics as part of the stimulus bill. Again, a needed expansion in a country that has developed a formula for converting a person's health to a dollar figure. There will be a series of health care reform forums and the administration is looking for input. Finally, the Department of Education is starting to send some of the capital dollars out to improve schools throughout the United States. That is all that I could find for this last week. Obama was traveling most of the week, and said very little about poverty back home.

Brian

We Have A Great Deal of Work

Fannie Mae Foundation Measures Perceptions of Homelessness in America

In November, Fannie Mae released a report entitled "Homelessness in America: Americans' Perceptions, Attitudes, and Knowledge" conducted by the Gallup Corporation. There were a lot of interesting findings, but it points to the need for more education about homelessness in America. We still have to overcome a number of myths about homeless people. The study was conducted in 8 American cities, and found that the majority of Americans believe that we could do more to address homelessness in the United States.

The good news from the perception studies were that 58% of the population believes that homelessness has increased while only 7% believe it has decreased. The bad news is that homelessness received only a handful of votes as one of the most important issues facing the United States. This means that the chance of a presidential candidate mentioning homelessness is slim. The National Coalition is challenging each candidate to spend at least one night on the street in 2008 to raise awareness of the problem, but based on the survey this is unlikely to rise to the top of a question in one of the debates. November is Hunger and Homeless Awareness week, and Fannie Mae is active in raising dollars with a walk in DC thus the reason for the report.

The survey properly identified the federal government as most responsible for addressing homelessness with 35% of those answering the question identifying the federal government. The State government was second with 25% and City or Local government and Community Groups were tied for third with 20% of the people thinking that these entities should take a lead role in solving homelessness. Only 51% believe that communities are safer when people do not have to live on the streets. The vast majority (85%) of the American public believe drugs or alcohol abuse is the major reason that causes homelessness and 26% of the population believe that that drugs/alcohol is the primary cause of homelessness. The most surprising and dangerous perception in the study was that only 4% of the American public believes that the lack of affordable housing is the primary cause of homelessness. This is one percent more than believe that laziness as the primary cause for homelessness. There are millions of people who spend most of their days high or drunk or both and have no problem staying in housing. This leads me to believe that we need to do more education starting at a younger age on the causes of homelessness.

You should check out the study yourself, but here are some other quick notes on the study:

• 44% report that they have taken in a friend or relative who was facing homelessness. THIS IS A HUGE NUMBER!!
• Medical expenses is now the leading worry for Americans that might lead them to become homeless themselves. 43% for medical expenses with 38% job loss.
• 28% of the general public reported that they have worried that they may not have a place to live.
• 9% reported that they did not have enough money to afford food over the last 12 months with 5% reporting that they did not have enough money over the last 12 months to provide housing for their family.
• 91% of the public believes that we can never totally eliminate homelessness.
• 80% report a willingness to volunteer at an organization that helps homeless people.
• A slight majority (54%) would be willing to pay additional taxes to fund programs that help homeless people.

It was also interesting to see the differences in the perceptions in various cities. NEOCH will use this perception study as a place to start for our public education campaign.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.