Many turn to 'survival mode' as they try to stay off the streets
By Erin Wood of the Journal Star
In many ways, Anthony Franklin is like any other 17-year-old boy.He has a job, a curfew and a girlfriend.But since he was kicked out of his mother's house two years ago because of a dispute with her boyfriend, Franklin has hopped from one basement to the next."You find a lot of good friends who will let you live with them if you have to," said Franklin, who tries to stay optimistic despite his draining lifestyle.With no real place to call home, Franklin is legally considered an unaccompanied youth, the fastest-growing homeless population, according to Mary Ellen Ulrich, homeless liaison for Project Target at the Regional Office of Education."You think of homeless people as the drunk guy begging for money or the bird lady with her shopping cart," Ulrich said. "But they're not the only homeless people. You forget about the kid with green eyes and freckles."Franklin, like many homeless students, had a tough time concentrating on his education while balancing his unsteady day-to-day life. Because of behavior problems, he's been kicked out of several area schools and doesn't have many options left.But he's not alone. Ulrich, the link between Peoria County's homeless children and their schools, has seen a recent surge in kids living on the streets. From August to today - the first day of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week - Ulrich has placed or offered assistance in some capacity to 127 students. By this date last year, just 21 children needed her help.Ulrich credits a struggling economy, increased unemployment rates and widespread home foreclosures for forcing more and more people to the street. But it's not just a local problem.Data compiled by the Illinois State Board of Education found about 22,000 Illinois students in 2007 were homeless, up from about 18,000 students in 2006. The agency believes, however, the actual number is much higher, closer to 60,000.Nationwide, about 1.6 million people, or about one in every 200 people, use an emergency shelter or transitional housing facility in a given year, with children making up nearly 40 percent of that population, according to 2007 data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.With few more possessions than the clothes on their back and living anywhere from cars to crowded shelters, homeless youth search for security while presenting their teachers with a vital task: helping these nomadic children find stability in education, often their only lifeline to a better tomorrow."Their lives are completely upside down. They need a teacher more than any kid in that classroom," Ulrich said. "School gives them a stable environment where they'll at least be warm and be fed. It's a chance to step away from reality, even if just for a few hours."To be in compliance with federal law, known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, school districts must seek out and enroll homeless students and therefore become a sort of safety net for children, who have no control over their living situations.Ulrich said homeless children are referred to her office mostly by social services agencies and teachers who suspect they have homeless children in their classrooms.Some of the signs a child is homeless include poor classroom performance, erratic attendance, weakened self-esteem and behavioral problems. Completing homework and making friends are the least of these kids' concerns. Even food and sleep - the most basic of human needs - sometime seem unattainable."They're in survival mode," said Norma Weaver, divisional social services director for the Salvation Army. "They forget to be children because they are so concerned with the crisis. They move from place to place and are never sure where they are going to be next or when they are going to eat again."Shelters such as the Salvation Army, which Weaver said is almost always at maximum capacity, offer homeless families a chance to get off the streets. Though the rooms are small - with just enough space to house two sets of bunk beds - living in shelters offers many more resources than the streets do.Aside from a warm bed and food, they provide after-school child care, extracurricular activities and projects for children and classes for parents on topics such as budgeting and stress management. Children get their own beds, their own stuffed animals and a community room to watch television.But in offering so many resources and creating an environment as close to a home as many families will get, shelters rarely have openings and must send families, including children, back to the streets."One family moves out and another moves in," Weaver said.Ulrich's office, though it helps get destitute children back in school, is not a "magic eraser" for homelessness. Though she can suggest shelters to homeless families or call social services agencies in violent or negligent situations, finding kids a home ultimately is out of her reach.For many poverty-stricken families, homelessness isn't yet a reality, but for some, it's inching closer.A Manual High School freshman, who is living in his sister's two-bedroom house on Peoria's south side with five other people, is considered homeless according to the law."I hope we can get out of here," said the 14-year-old, who asked that his name not be used.In July, the boy's mother, 46, who also asked not to be named, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It has since progressed to Stage 4, spreading to her bones and lungs. Unable to work and with no health insurance, the family couldn't make rent and were forced out of their mobile home and into the mother's daughter's house.For the woman's son, that meant enrolling in a new school, sleeping on a chair in his sister's living room every night and sometimes dealing with hunger pangs. He liked Limestone Community High School better, he said, and is having a hard time adjusting to the different atmosphere at Manual."It sucks," he said. "It doesn't feel like home."Still, his mother remains optimistic."He seems to be doing OK, considering how much he's going through," she said. "It broke his to heart to have to move."Michael Barber, principal of Irving Primary School, has more than 10 years of experience teaching homeless children, a task that often requires more attention and patience as well as the ability to put oneself in another's shoes, he said."There is already so much on your mind when you don't know where you are going to stay at night," Barber said. "Then you have to come to school and do your work. When you don't have your basic needs met, schoolwork is not a priority."Still, though their behavior might not always show it, homeless students appreciate having a desk to call their own, Barber said."It's the one constant they have that doesn't really change," he said. "It provides stability."For Franklin, an education is the only promise he'll someday have a place he can permanently call home. That's why - for two hours each night - he studies for the GED."I want to get a grant and go to college," Franklin said. "That's what I should be thinking about at night, not where I'm going to sleep."