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Ohio Capital Journal
Data Shows 25,600 Homeless Students In Ohio, Number Increasing Annually
On any given weekday, about 25,600 homeless students — 1.5% of all
enrollees — walked into Ohio's K-12 schools, according to state data.
By Jake Zuckerman
January 13, 2020
On any given weekday, about 25,600 homeless students — 1.5% of all
enrollees — walked into Ohio's K-12 schools, according to state data
from the 2018-2019 school year.
Thirteen years ago, it was 7,560, or 0.5% of enrolled students.
The data comes from the Ohio Department of Education, which is required
under the 1987 McKinney-Vento law to track the number of homeless
students enrolled and provide them certain resources like
transportation and meals.
Homelessness, under the law, is broadly defined as students who "lack a
fixed, regular, adequate nighttime residence." This includes:
Students sharing another person's housing — "doubled up" — due to loss
of housing, financial hardship or similar reasons (this comprises the
vast majority of Ohio's homeless students)
Students living in hotels, motels, RV parks or campgrounds due to the lack of an adequate alternative
Students living in emergency or transitional shelters, or abandoned in hospitals
Students living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, etc.
While homelessness is notoriously difficult to accurately count, Marcus
Roth, a spokesman for the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in
Ohio, said he sees the DOE data as an accurate reflection of a steady
increase in student homelessness, rather than an accurate headcount.
He said the trend tracks with research from the Ohio Housing Finance
Agency, which found about 70,000 Ohioans accessed services provided for
homeless people in 2017, compared to about 58,000 in 2012.
"We do know … the number of people accessing homeless services really
has been increasing overall, and the increases are driven by children,"
he said.
The state number is likely too low, according to Susannah Wayland, the
homeless education coordinator with the state Department of Education.
She said between the broad definition of homelessness and the stigma
sometimes attached to economic hardship, the data is likely an
undercount.
Some of the counties with the highest rates, according to DOE data, include:
Monroe County, 182 students (8.8%)
Morgan County, 129 students (7.3%)
Highland County, 396 students (5.7%)
Ross County, 410 students (4.1%)
Hamilton County, 4,232 students (3.8%)
Lucas County, 2,784 students (3.8%)
'Getting them here is the main challenge'
Under McKinney-Vento, every school district has its own liaison who
works to identify students who may be experiencing homelessness and
connect them to select resources.
In interviews, several of the liaisons emphasized one key challenge —
providing students transportation so they can stay enrolled in their
district of origin, regardless of their new living situation.
"A lot of it has to do with transportation and getting them here," said
Jessica Kohler, a principal for Liberty Local School District in
Trumbull County, which sees a handful of homeless students every year.
"Getting them here is the main challenge."
Similarly, Wayland said transiency can get in the way of academic
success, and a key piece of the law is allowing students to stay in the
school they attended before becoming homeless, if they wish.
Mary Alice Sigler, a liaison for United Local Schools, in Columbiana
County, said finding transportation solutions to keep education stable
for homeless students is the linchpin of the job.
"They've already had some sort of trauma in their homelives; you want to keep some level of consistency," she said.
Findlay Digital Academy, an online public charter school for students
at high-risk of dropping out, faces a unique set of challenges for its
homeless students, according to Rosemary Rooker, the school's executive
director and homeless liaison.
That can mean ensuring students have access to the internet,
transportation to in-person tutoring and labs the school offers, or
just linking the students up with area resources for people
experiencing homelessness.
"I guess the important part is we just work closely with our community
resources and that we're linking people to all these services that are
available," she said. "They don't always know where to go."
What's causing this?
In an interview, Wayland declined to speculate on what might be behind
the threefold-increase in student homelessness. She said she's worked
with students whose families have been through evictions, domestic
violence, house fires, drug addiction and more.
"There's just a multitude of hardships," she said.
To Roth, it comes down to economics. For one, since the financial
collapse of 2008, many Americans switched from home owning to renting,
driving up demand in rental markets, he said.
Couple that with other macroeconomic forces, and there's a squeeze on middle class budgets.
"What we think is basically that we've seen a decades-long trend at
this point where rents are increasing, and wages are pretty stagnant,
especially for people at the lower end of the income scale," he said.
"So that gap between wages and rents is expanding."
From her principal's office, Kohler said a lot of it comes back to the substance abuse epidemic.
"In my experience, that's why a lot of these kids are getting displaced
from their homes," she said. "Whether it's to go live with grandma or
another family member."
What's more important to Wayland than guessing why the rate is
increasing, she said, is making sure the state is doing what it can to
keep the students on track. They face a world of different challenges
from instability to judgement.
"The existence of the law is not to stigmatize or just identify," she
said. "We want to go beyond the compliance and just know the reasons
the provisions exist is to support families in transition and keep
their students in the pathway of success."
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