Youth Pursue Education While Experiencing Homelessness

Forty-one students experiencing homelessness were enrolled in East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) during the 2022-2023 school year, nearly double the number from the year before.

Nick Hamilton, the district’s director of student support services, also serves as the homeless liaison, ensuring this population of K-12 students receive the resources they need to continue their education with as little disruption as possible.

“If we realize a student isn’t catching the bus at their residence or we’re sending communication to a house and we’re not getting communication [back], that will spark a conversation on our end,” Hamilton said in a Zoom interview with ELi earlier this school year. “What’s going on? What’s your living circumstance? We want to make sure you get the supports you need. Our office secretaries are aware of that and they are often the front line who know more than anyone else. We have different things posted across all of our buildings.”

Homeless students attending public schools in the United States are afforded specific services and rights through the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. These include the right to stay in their school of origin (the school they were enrolled in when they became homeless), transportation to and from that school, the waiving of certain fees, free uniforms and more.

McKinney-Vento also offers a multi-faced definition of homelessness, accounting for most circumstances a student and their family could face. Circumstances included in the definition are students staying in motels or campgrounds, those staying in a public place like the street or in cars and abandoned buildings, and those living in doubled-up situations. The latter typically involves a student (with or without their family) staying with someone but not being guaranteed housing via lease or rental. This could include couch-surfing experiences.

“It’s really about the upfront enrollment when we really find out about it,” Hamilton said about students and their families seeking out the McKinney-Vento resources. “Unless a family’s been displaced or circumstances have changed for them, oftentimes families aren’t self-identifying. It’s a very personal thing that I don’t think people are outwardly looking to share with people.

“I’m not sure how to crack that code,” Hamilton said. “We just want people to know they’re supported and that they have a place here and that we want to take care of them best that we can. I think that speaks to the general work we need to do with all of our families and students in the climate and culture so they feel comfortable to come and speak with us.”

Providing transportation for homeless students can be a challenge.

The largest and often most difficult accommodation, Hamilton said, is ensuring a student has reliable transportation to and from school.

“We provide transportation via Dean,” he said. “We will provide CATA passes, we will provide gas cards, too. Obviously, that’s not always the best option because of the car situation or the ability for the family or caregiver to transport. But we will do any one of those three. Dean is definitely the starting point. I struggle in giving a second grader a bus pass for public transport. We aim to get them enrolled and up and running within 24 hours of finding out about the student. That’s what the law calls for. Sometimes we struggle a little bit to get the Dean component up and running, just because it’s difficult to find out at 8 a.m. in the morning and to find a bus route that goes by where they’re staying by eight o’clock the next day.

“We’ve gone so far as I’ve had social workers and principals go pick kids up,” Hamilton said.

Because homelessness often relocates a family outside of the district, Hamilton is sensitive to the changing needs of the student.

“I treat it a little more on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “A student will come to us and we’re providing them transportation and supports, and we are struggling, for whatever reason, to get them to school. I’ll communicate with parents and they’ll be living in another district very close to another school. The way I treat that, we’ll have a conversation, me and the adult, like, you are welcome to stay here and I will continue to provide transportation for you. But we might need to have a conversation [about] does it logically make sense, based on proximity, that it may just be easier for you to attend Eaton Rapids or Bath or a Lansing school or wherever it may be. We don’t cut families out, but there is a problem-solving conversation with the caregiver where we’re struggling to get your kid to school. Or we’ll have situations where a child will have very long bus rides after they’ve left the East Lansing boundaries, and it’s a first grader on a bus an hour one way.”

Hamilton said he had a situation where a child was living in an apartment complex right next to a wonderful school in Lansing, or they had an hour and 15 minute bus ride one way to get to East Lansing.

“Or it might be the opposite, where your child is really thriving here and the supports [are] in place to help them and the bus ride doesn’t seem to be having a negative effect on them, so let’s just keep going as it is,” he said.

Once students arrive at school, Hamilton and staff try to provide them with resources they need to succeed.

“We send a form home, essentially [asking] what might your kiddo need to be successful in school,” he said. “It includes an inventory of what they need clothing-wise, a coat, underwear, socks, we do have shirts and stuff like that. We also do provide a waiver to go to Goodwill and get a bunch of items, as well. We also have backpacks, folders, binders, paper, markers, what I would call the basic school components that you would need to be successful in school. 

“Our social workers and counselors have closets and closets of brand new and donated things, whether it be shirts, coats, pants, boots, mittens, gloves, all that stuff,” Hamilton said.

Candis Dail is a mother who could have availed herself of these resources if she had known about them. She and her youngest child, 13, became homeless early last spring. For nearly two months, they stayed at Haven House, a shelter for homeless families in East Lansing.

“I still worked each day from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” Dail said. “I would drop my daughter off to her uncle’s at 4:30 a.m. so she could get off to school on time. I was working way on the opposite side of town [from the shelter].”

“[The McKinney-Vento services] would have been a big help,” she said. “My daughter was attending Lansing Charter Academy and I wanted to keep her in that school. The daily routine was hard on her.”

Through the help of the Capital Area Housing Authority, Dail and her daughter have gotten out of the shelter and into an apartment. She is hopeful about her future, as well as her daughter’s.

“She wants to be a lawyer,” she said. “I’m looking to put her into Okemos High School. I like the area.”

When asked what advice she had for other parents going through the same thing, she was succinct.

“Remain humble, remain determined and just pray,” Dail said. “Follow all rules and do all you have to do, but most of all, stay humble.”

Hamilton wishes more students and families experiencing homelessness were aware of the McKinney-Vento services.

“The biggest commonality going on for these students is that they may have 101 things going on,” he said. “But K-12 students crave structure. And if we can create that structured environment, if it’s the most structured environment they have, typically speaking, they’ll want to be here, we’ve just got to figure out a way to get them here.”

The program, funded primarily by federal dollars that are distributed through the county, has helped give students some semblance of structure over the years. But Hamilton is wary of taking any credit.

“Any success stories are not because of me,” he said. “It’s about the boots on the ground in the [school district] buildings with our social workers, our counselors, and our teachers who are aware and really work to support our students. It’s about the little victories that occur. OK, we’ve identified the student and know they need help getting to school. We are working with the adults to create a sense of normalcy in their day to set them up to be successful. 

“There are people here who want to help and we want to know about your circumstances so we can help build supports for you and your family.”