The Plight of Homeless Children:
Losing Education Hopes & Dreams:
Part I of a Series
15,380 Homeless Children
in
NYC
Get
Lost in the Shuffle
by Russell Crane
Families reach the point of homelessness because they have
exhausted their housing and financial resources and many may
not have a network of support, either due to domestic violence
or other breakdowns in relationships. The instability caused
by homelessness that a family experiences hits on all parts
of a family's life, and their children's education becomes
only one of the areas that is put into chaos. Currently, there
are 8,798 families including 15,380 children in the New York
City shelter system. The average length of stay in the shelter
system for families is over eleven months.
For a family who has just become homeless, regular school
attendance poses an enormous challenge. Families from all the
five boroughs of New York City have to apply for shelter at
a government office in the South Bronx called the Emergency
Assistance Unit (EAU). Currently, the number of homeless families
applying for shelter exceeds the EAU's maximum capacity for
people on a regular basis. According to a New York City local
law, the City must process homeless families' applications
for shelter on the day that they apply for shelter and not
send them to more than one overnight placement, before assigning
the family to a stable conditional shelter placement, which
could be a hotel or a non-profit operated shelter. As the system
is currently being operated, families who apply for shelter
are regularly being sent to unlawful multiple overnight placements.
Buses take families out of the EAU late at night, frequently
after midnight, so that it is impossible for families to get
adequate sleep before they are bused back to the EAU to wait
all day for processing. The current EAU, where families are
forced to spend so much time, is extremely noisy, very crowded,
and lacks any source of stimulation for children or a place
for children to quietly do schoolwork.
Families are returned from overnight placements to the EAU
during the morning from very early, to as late as 10:30 am.
Many families decide that by the time they arrive at the EAU,
it is too late to take their children to school or their children
will simply be too tired to stay awake in school. Other families
may not yet have their children registered in school and are
worried that they will not be able to complete the registration
process without an address. Families who do try to take their
children to school must carry all of their belongings (there
is no storage at the EAU) and must complete a rigorous, time-consuming
process of waiting in long lines to get passes to leave the
EAU and to get Metrocards to travel to school. During the 2003-2004
school year, The Legal Aid Society documented wide-spread problems
adversely affecting families' abilities to obtain passes to
leave the EAU and to obtain the proper amount of Metrocard
fare to take children to school, both of which are discouraging
factors to families who are making efforts to take children
to school.
When the City finally places a family into a more stable conditional
shelter, the location can be in a completely new neighborhood
for the family. According to New York State regulations, the
City has a responsibility to try to place families in a shelter
closest to the youngest child's school. Unfortunately, because
the shelter system is so crowded, many families are placed
very far from their old schools.
Congress passed the McKinney-Vento Act in order to protect
the rights of homeless children to attend school. Under this
legislation, homeless children have the right to immediately
enroll in a new school where they currently are or continue
their enrollment in the previous school, which they attended
before becoming homeless. In accordance with a court order
in New York City, if a family chooses to commute back to their
original school, the family is entitled to receive ongoing
transportation assistance, if they need it, to be able to travel
to that school.
After a family receives a conditional
shelter placement, the City conducts an investigation to
determine whether a family has any other housing actually
available to them. The Legal Aid Society's analysis of City
data on applications shows that many families have to file
multiple applications for shelter before the City concedes
they are eligible. When the City determines a family to be "ineligible" for
shelter the family must leave their shelter placement, and
if the family has nowhere to go they must re-apply for shelter
at the EAU. Therefore, ineligible determinations throw children's
education into turmoil again because a family may no longer
be close to the school where the children were newly registered.
Ineligible families are also currently
being put through a different process at the EAU, which the
City calls "Fast
Track." Under the "Fast Track" policy, families
are only given overnight placements during their application.
For families who are on "Fast Track," school attendance
becomes exponentially more difficult because day after day
families are in the EAU environment with a little amount of
sleep and all of their belongings.
A Court-ordered Special Master Panel,
which has the authority to evaluate all aspects of the shelter
system and make recommendations for improvement has found
that the current EAU is "an
unhealthy environment" and the eligibility process to
be error-ridden. They have recommended that the City end the "Fast
Track" policy for families determined ineligible and that
the current EAU be replaced with a new EAU that would involve
a shorter application process with families receiving stable
placements more quickly. If the City follows these recommendations,
it would have an enormous impact on homeless children's school
attendance.#
Russell Crane works for the Legal Aid Society of New York.
