Back-to-School Nightmares Rampant for Homeless Parents

You don't get it until you live it.

The reality of shelter life is...impermanence; where will we end up? Add this to the day after day awareness of their parents preoccupation with seeking employment, overcoming the despair that poverty invites or banging your head daily to live with seriously limited resources, and feeling isolated because as much as we don't want to feel ashamed of our circumstances...we suffer the judgmental slings and arrows from school personnel and all the jabs and jeers of those automated letters and voicemails. [Paula, mom in a homeless situation with her son]

Paula nails it. She and her son have been homeless for a couple years after experiencing brutal and long-lasting abuse from her ex. It's a common tale, I know. But let's not ho-hum it. What they're dealing with is anything but ho-hum.

The simple act of her 12-year-old son (a cool kid!) getting to school is causing massive distress. Trauma in abundance lingers like a storm cloud over their lives. Her ex-spouse sounds like a scary monster in a horror movie. The "protection" system--the courts/law enforcement--appear to be anything but helpful. The danger of the ex returning to wreak havoc is plausible. And the school appears to be dismissing her like a piece of junk mail.

Paula's trying to get her son on the school bus, but the shelter they're in seems to be a tad too close to the school, by .2 miles according to my calculation. Her son, according to what she's shared, gets bullied by kids along the sidewalk and on school property. He's dreading school, certainly the act of walking to/from school, which is contrary to his intelligent, enthusiastic manner that I've seen.

I've talked to a couple lawyers familiar with the rightfully-touted McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act. Although MV isn't as obvious as some of us would like, it does give schools leeway in situations like this--where barriers exist for kids' attendance and success in school. Other creative, legit ways of getting around the obvious school transportation issue also exist.

I spoke with the principal who assured me that they do everything possible for kids--all kids--at their school. I'd like to believe him. But the proof will be evident if this boy can hop a bus.

I'm waiting to speak with the district's homeless liaison. Paula indicates no one's ever connected her (or other families she's spoken to) with the liaison, who is supposed to be the point-person to avert these kind of stumbling blocks. The lack of attention to this issue is quite evident to this astute mom.

The good news is, if districts are willing to invest minimal money and precious time, we have some great tools to help districts better understand and address myriad issues facing students in homeless situations:

• HEAR US offers 2 great videos (DVDs), My Own Four Walls, and on the edge. 
• We have a free video that can be watched online, REACH, that explains how to make M-V work, even if you're behind bars.
• We also have Pat Van Doren's powerful set of children's books and  adult books on homelessness, mine (Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness) and my friend Pat LaMarche's missive, Left Out in America. 
• And a great new video by my friend Patricia Julianelle has school officials explaining (in user-friendly 8-min. clips) how this law, one in which I was quite involved in getting passed, works so well. The McKinney-Vento Act in Our Schools hits the nail on the head. 

I dunno...with all the information available, it seems like schools wouldn't create barriers when it comes to opening school doors and encouraging success of our nation's most promising (and growing class) of scholars--kids in homeless situations.

I'm willing to be the tutor for this district. I'd bring in experts like Paula and scads of other parents that could educate the educators. With the unprecedented growth of homelessness, we better kick into gear how to best cope with it before we see an Occupy Schoolyard movement.

Compassion Call-Out!

Oregon Family Campsite, Photo by Rob Finch, 11-2007

All across America, as weather shifts into the raw winter chill, record numbers of families are turning to the "great outdoors" for their new homes.

This photo, by friend Rob Finch (Oregonian), gives you a peek at what passes for camping for families with no other place to stay. Once they lose their homes--for a variety of reasons--and discover that their town has no shelter, the shelter is full, or the shelter doesn't allow intact families, they get, um, creative, and camp. Rob and I followed this family around for several days during a raw, rainy November. They had "camped" for about 6 months on the wooded edge of a church property.

This camping is far different than state parks or private campgrounds. Families tend to set up their tent (if they're lucky enough to have one) and tarps (a cheap essential to extend their living space and to cover their firewood and belongings) in remote places--thick woods--close enough to sources of food and other essentials but out of public view. They don't want child welfare agents, police officers or nosy do-gooders finding them.

They lack access to any basic hygiene facilities, i.e. bathrooms. They're always being invaded by critters large and small, and camps like this lack any way to be safe and secure from 2-legged predators.

Weather is always an issue. Water--in its many forms--is both a luxury (fresh drinking water and water to bathe with) and a menace, soaking blankets, clothing and food. Cold temperatures become brutal. Hot temps make living miserable. Wind and snow are "bonuses," making life even more miserable.

Food--especially nutritious offerings--tends to be scarce. Storage of food vexes even the most determined camper--rats, raccoons, and chipmunks always get their way. Lack of refrigeration presents logistical challenges. Cooking is an art that Jamie Oliver would learn from. Cooking space sanitation? Forget it. Food supplies are meager because pantries often hesitate to give food to people who have no address. What they give is often impractical for campers.

Health care? Nope. Sickness, yup.

School--if they're lucky the kids will get to/from school. Can't say much for the quality of their attendance or participation. Nutritionally and sleep deprived, hygiene-deficient, and insecure kids don't make the best students.

And in this testy environment, we're finding families with kids of all ages. Homeless camps used to be just for the crusty "hobo" types, those escaping or rejecting life as most people know it. But now, in this day of uber-prosperity for the lucky ones, the unlucky ones fall through the big crack. Emergency shelters are turning away families in record numbers. Families with nowhere to go and nobody to help them turn to the great outdoors.

I don't know how people can sleep knowing that moms, dads and kids are huddled under tarps and tents, lacking heat, lacking civilization, lacking any way to get out of this mess on the outskirts of most communities. Everywhere I go, even in the affluent Atlanta suburbs, homeless families "camping" is epidemic.

Occupy Wall Street (and many other efforts nationwide) could benefit by the numbers of families and single individuals setting up camp. They could bolster the numbers of people on the streets because they live on the streets. And if we don't get things turned around, unrealistically before the brutal cold sets in, we're going to have homeless children and parents dying on the streets.

Pathetically, and embarrassingly, at the same time of this record ravaging homelessness, record numbers of vacant houses sit and rot. Now if someone can't figure 2+2 and decide homeless families and empty houses are in many cases a good combination, well, we're dumber than we look.

If you want to help, check out the HEAR US Compassion Action Guide on our home page (http://hearus.us).  Plenty of opportunities to make a difference, including a link to vote for the HEAR US CITGO $5000 gas card prize.

HUD--the Homelessness Creation Agency?

My good faith gets shaken on a regular basis, and when it involves the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, aka HUD, it really flaps wildly. What I'm yammering about is a policy that leaves a formerly homeless family damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Tina, the courageous mother I've written about over the past couple years, and her 6 young boys, live in a modest house trailer in Las Cruces, NM. First I blogged about the family's bleak situation after I found them living in a 13' beater-camper-trailer--mom and her 5 baby boys. Stimulus money came about, giving communities funds to help move families like Tina's into housing. Then  I blogged about the difficulties finding a landlord to rent to this large family. She finally found the landlord with the trailer. But...

Her next struggle came transferring into Section 8 (subsidized housing), not because she wasn't in need or qualified (she got through the eye-of-the-needle exam at the HUD-regulated public housing authority), but because...she has bad credit. Yup. Bad credit.

In her previous married life, she incurred a penalty of about $5,200 for unreported income with the public housing authority. She was in the process of getting her then-husband reinstated on the lease (he apparently talked her into it after putting her in the hospital), and Tina's brother moved in before being okayed by the PHA. Tina and her kids left her abusive ex, but now she gets saddled with that past debt--a barrier to keep her and the kids from qualifying for public housing.

Hubby (now ex), 1/2 the gene pool, apparently doesn't have to assume his share of this debt. Mom and kids struggle mightily, comply with copious regulations, scrimp and scrape to keep together and out of the shredded child welfare "system," and she's got to pay the whole $5,200. It gets worse.

HEAR US negotiated a payment plan and found donors to help pay off the debt, Tina and her boys got their Section 8 certificate allowing them to stay in their humble trailer. Then, the Las Cruces housing authority diligently does an income review and finds, gasp, that $180 a month is being paid on the prior debt by HEAR US so Tina and the kids wouldn't be homeless. According to HUD regulations, they need to factor in this money--that Tina never touches--into her income, more than doubling her rent.

Tina protests, attends a hearing and is shot down. I write to the old HA and ha-ha. They shoot me down, claiming HUD regulations. So now, after all this time--mid-2010 till now--Tina, saddled with the care of her 6 little boys (try to get a job under her conditions), has no way to increase her income enough to pay the increased rent that HUD says she needs to pay because she's lucky enough to have someone paying her past debt with the old HA so she and her 6 boys won't be homeless in Las Cruces.

How's that for stupid? Now, without being able to pay the money both housing authorities are demanding, this family teeters on the precipice of homelessness in a city that has no emergency shelter for families. So then, for want of about a $2,000 balance on the past debt and $100 a month on the current housing, this family will get churned up in the same system that found it in its heart to bail out rich bankers, hedge fund traders, and the rest of the sleazy bums.

The ex--father of 4 of her children--may get stuck with half the debt in a pending divorce agreement. But HUD will factor that into Tina's rent, raising it further. This gets dumber and dumber as I type. 

HEAR US will again try to collect money to help Tina and the kids, fighting for a change of policies in the meantime. It feels really sleazy sending money to a housing authority that's making life this hard on her, but she has no option--other than the unacceptable one of homelessness. If you want to donate, here's the secure link. It's tax-deductible. We don't take a penny and it all goes directly to pay that stupid debt.

My delirious hope out of all this...that we get to a point where HUD agrees to "do no harm" for Tina, and for scores of other housing-vulnerable decent human beings in this country--that would be the majority of us. Sigh.

Michigan Tourism Slogan--the Canary in the Coal Mine?

Michigan, with their miles of dunes along miles of Lake Michigan and Chicago area pols hot-footing it down sandy sidewalks in picturesque vacation getaways, spends good money for their catchy new tourism slogans, now Pure Michigan, from Great Lakes, Great Times, and Say Yes to Michigan....

No matter, because the more popular signs in the beleaguered Wolverine State, tarnished by the tanking of the auto business and what was left of commerce, now feature for sale by owner, for rent, and closed signs.  Michigan can teach us something. They've increased their tourism budget to attract people to the once-popular vacation land. (One would wonder who's getting all the money...but that's another topic for another blogger I hope.)

Sadly, the state once known for beaches, tulips and cherries is now close to dying. Because the symptoms are little—as in kids—few pay attention. While nationally the number of kids in poverty (household income $22,000 or less) has reached an alarming (to some of us) 25% according to Kids Count 2011, the number of kids in Michigan living in poverty soared 64%, with 75,000 kids added to the already dismayingly high numbers, which includes over 20,000 homeless children.

Take a look at the years since I've been on the road under the HEAR US banner--since November 2005. Way back then MI had 459,000 kids living in poverty. The number now is 520,000 (for 2009, the latest data reported). That's quite an increase.

I'm not a number cruncher, but the availability of detailed data in this respected report got my attention:

• 249,000 kids in extreme poverty (that's 1/2 the measly, inadequate poverty rate). 
• 709,000 kids living in households spending more than the acceptable amount of 30% on housing
• 735,401 kids getting free or reduced lunch
• 340,169 babies and toddlers (0-4) receiving WIC (Women, Infants and Children). 

Enough data. Look up your own state. Get locally appalled.

(This is where the rabid nay-sayers chime in and say women shouldn't have babies. We should cut people off the benefit trough and let them fend for themselves. Stick a sock in it.)


Folks up in MI aren't just sitting around pining (bad pun) about these problems. The MI League for Human Services offers suggestions:

Here in Michigan we should focus our attention on:

• Expanding programs, such job training and postsecondary education for unemployed and low-income parents and the Earned Income Tax Credit to supplement low wages; these programs promote economic success for families.
• Implementing programs and disbursing funds that help more families negotiate the foreclosure process; Michigan has $498 million in federal funds to help families in foreclosure.
• Enacting the reforms, such as including part-time workers, to the unemployment system that would recognize the changes in the world of work and bring another $139 million of federal funding into the state.
  
  – Jane Zehnder-Merrell

Yeah. That's gonna happen with Gov. Snyder whacking away at anything that resembles human services.

For those applauding Guv Ax-Assistance, let me point out the hard truth. Ignore human needs today and pay more tomorrow. It's a lesson that needs to become the new Michigan slogan.

I'm so outraged about this and every other state's skyrocketing poverty I hardly know what to say or do. I can cry for the kids, but that won't help. So the small band of us working hard to make sure kids get an education, even if they don't have homes, will continue our efforts.

Not to get all scriptural, but The poor shall inherit the earth comes to mind. Hmmm. That makes a great slogan for MI tourism. Wonder what they'd be willing to pay me?

When Times Get Tough, the Tough Get Tougher

The "Evil Diane" is coming out in me. Expect nothing less after the latest round of budget bamboozlement. I'm plotting our next strategy to help homeless families survive what is bound to be more than the common "hard times."

So, here's my idea: We, the advocates for kids who signed this letter begging our Prez and congressional leaders to have mercy on vulnerable kids, form an ad hoc committee, "Share the Shack," or something like that, to pursue non-traditional housing options in our communities. Texas families give us a perfect prototype, let's call it "Sharing the Bling."

A recent NYT article reports on a trend of building playhouses for the kids. Not just any kids, kids of mega-rich parents, like Ms.Schiller, who's husband is (ahem) an oil company exec. Here's a partial description of their daughter's playhouse: "the two-story 170-square-foot... vaulted ceilings..., hardwood floors and a faux fireplace with a fanciful mosaic mantel. The little stainless-steel sink in the kitchen has running water, and the matching stainless-steel mini fridge and freezer are stocked with juice boxes and Popsicles. Upstairs is a sitting area with a child-size sofa and chairs for watching DVDs on the 32-inch flat-screen TV. The windows, which all open, have screens to keep out mosquitoes, and there are begonias in the window boxes. And, of course, the playhouse is air-conditioned."

To do justice to these playhouses you need to read the article, which adds, “I think of it as bling for the yard,” said Ms. Schiller, 40. Some people might consider it “obnoxious” for a child to have a playhouse that costs more and has more amenities than some real houses, she conceded. Obnoxious? Nah. So far beyond it that I can't come up with a word.

OK, here's the idea. Get maps pointing out bling locations. Give them to local desperate families that have no homes. Provide transportation to the bling-address. Let them move into these nice playhouses. Let the money-endowed families pick up government slack, providing for the families' food, medical, child care, education, and so on. This will end the need for the seemingly endless "Stuff the Bus" projects to provide basic school supplies for income-deprived kids.

For those communities that lack bling, connect with the profit-laden builders constructing these mini-mansions and ask them to find some local trees for homes. I'm sure we'll have enough to go around (trees and families in need).

Best to get hopping on this project because bad weather is just around the corner. We'd hate to have shelter-less families littering the landscape.

Seems to me we have enough to go around. We just need to be creative about prying it from those who have it and sharing it with the growing urchin class.

Who Are the Tough Ones?

Homeless mom and son doing laundry and showering at a campground.

Dueling political parties make the news. Obama, Boehner & Co. standing tough. But that's not where the real toughness lies.

The toughest people in this country are those trying to survive and to help their families survive. I just heard from a young mom that I've known for about 20 years. She, her husband and their son live in a trailer in the south. Modest living by all accounts.

Her husband just got sick and is unable to work. She's fighting a kidney stone, carpel tunnel syndrome, depression, migraines, and probably a bunch of other things. Their little boy (for now) is OK.

She's going for outpatient surgery for the kidney stone and will report back to work the next day. "I've got to. We need the money," she stoically shared with me. "Our furnace needs replacing. Our winter heating bills are $600. My husband's grandparents, on a fixed income, took a loan so I could have this surgery. We can't get food stamps, even though our income is now $100 a month."

Could you cope with that load of tough stuff? I wouldn't trade places with her for anything. Her big fear is rejoining the ranks of homeless families, knowing from her childhood what that was like. That's when I met her--she, her mom and siblings stayed at the shelter I ran.

In another part of the country, a beleaguered mom with 6 young boys is trying to make ends meet. Her meager budget of child support and welfare isn't enough to cover their essentials. Logistically, she can't get a job--child care and transportation alone would break her. And besides...what jobs are out there? She's $1,000 behind on her water/gas bill. She's looking down the road to back-to-school time and knows she'll need money for her boys to be ready for school. Her beater truck guzzles what she can't afford. Electricity. Gas. Water. Kids' shoes. Food. Such choices.

These are 2 families. I'd bet my lunch money millions more like them gallantly struggle to survive. They're tough. Bootstraps long frayed, they have unlikely prospects for escaping their bleak situations. Sure miracles happen...but, really, in today's world?

We have money. The "we" is our country. Not just government either. A Baptist church in Orlando just collected millions to help homeless families. That's just in compassion-challenged Orlando.

On July 4th, in backyards, towns and metro areas across this country, bazillion bucks went up in loud smoke as we celebrated (?) our nation's birthday. We spend billions to pamper pets (as opposed to providing adequately for them). We chug billions worth of beverages that harm us. We devour billions of bad food. You get the point.

And the Dems and Reps duke it out over our nation's fiscal policy. But they don't give a rat's ass about the families struggling to survive, like the households I mentioned and the millions more like them.

If nothing else, we should channel our respect to where it's deserved--the countless invisible s-heroes and heroes who continue to struggle to keep their families' bodies and souls together. Spend 4-minutes listening to young experts on what it's like to be homeless, our My Own Four Walls documentary trailer. You'll understand and be inspired.

Seems to me that we should revise our tax code so Good Samaritans could get tax credits for bolstering the frazzled safety net of families across our country.  Then we'll need to learn a tough new way of living--helping our neighbor without government intervention. It's shutting down. Of course, that will make the tax code irrelevant. Sigh.

It Really Is About the Children

These young children enjoyed the book Sarah gave them.

About 15 years ago, my friend, Pat Van Doren, started a project, It's About the Children.  Pat and her effort are now part of HEAR US Inc., our unconventional effort to prick the nation's conscience about the invisible homeless children and youth population.

Recently I've traveled coast-to-coast, filming for our new Littlest Nomads project. We're trying to sound the alarm about the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of little babies and toddlers growing up without a home during their most important time of development.

Sarah Benjamin, a McKinney-Vento funded homeless early childhood teacher and advocate from Long Island took me around to families in her program willing to let me "invade" with my camera. These kids, whose families had experienced various forms of homelessness (doubled-up, in motels, in shelters), benefited immensely by once a week "home" visits from Sarah and her colleagues. Despite high mobility, families had a strong link and continually received valuable resources, guidance and support to keep them involved in their toddlers' vital development. Witnessing the interaction between Sarah and the families touched my heart!

On an entirely different, disturbing level was the recent report of no increase of homeless persons during this brutal recession. Disturbing? You betcha! The National Alliance to End Homelessness reviewed the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) that Congress receives from HUD. I dunno. Leading the NAEH press release with No Increase In Homelessness Despite the Recession strikes me as a tad, um, delusional.

I've never had much use for the AHAR-generating Point-in-Time counts, the late-January best-faith effort to enumerate homeless persons in communities receiving HUD funding. One reason--they tend to totally overlook the invisible homeless family and youth population. And they ignore the many communities not receiving HUD funding. Even the Government Accounting Office took issue with these reports and related topics last year, citing rampant confusion in HUD's efforts.

NAEH staff, HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness,
Congress and our President should be made to listen to this traumatized
baby wailing on this church floor (aka homeless shelter of the night).

Congress gets AHAR and feels "good" about HUD's progress. NAEH touting HUD's success is, in my humble opinion, disingenuous at best.

Homelessness--for adults and children--is traumatic and not acceptable. And the half-ass way this nation has been pretending to address it--the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987 signed into law 24 years ago--the abysmally under-funded, discombobulated, bamboozling "approach" to "ending homelessness," is a travesty at best.

Whatever M-V success--and some has occurred--is commendable. But don't think that these accomplishments have reached coast-to-coast or in any way solved the problem. And for every family or individual who gets the well-intentioned, sincere help returning to a place to call home, or gets an education, countless others fall into the vortex.

Homeless programs are an easy target for the ruthless budget-balancing-bobble-heads wanting to rob from the poor and give to the rich. But it doesn't have to be that way. 

I invite--no, urge--you to join me and tens of thousands of like-minded concerned Americans to urge President Obama to take a stand that will protect our vulnerable infants, children, elders, and others from the otherwise inevitable budget slashing. Co-sign Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) letter.

Seems to me the message Pat Van Doren created years ago is even more essential today. It's About the Children...or we'll all be sorry.