Why are so many children homeless?
Despite their best efforts, those involved in fi ghting homelessness among children say they’re only scratching the surface of the problem. The root causes of homeless remain unabated, advocates say, and several factors exacerbate the problem in Springfi eld.
“We are definitely not getting to the root of the problem,” said Molly Berendt, program director of the Compass afterschool program run by the Family Service Center in Springfield. “We are trying to offer a temporary solution. I don’t think anyone is really tackling the root of it because there’s more than one root. We don’t have enough beds for homeless people in Springfield. We don’t have enough shelters for homeless families. We don’t have a good enough system of public transportation for our families to get around. There are just so many different issues.”
The struggling economy undoubtedly contributes to the increase in homelessness nationwide as jobs are lost, homes are foreclosed and social service agencies that previously provided some buffer against homelessness see their funding cut drastically.
“Even the two-parent families that had been making it are all of a sudden struggling to the extent that they’re just barely even covering their utilities,” says Vivian Jones, a parent educator at Hazel Dell and Laketown elementary schools. She is part of a team at the school district that attempts to help families at risk of homelessness.
Hazel Dell principal Jamar Scott says housing options for families with very low income are “horrible.” Many of them should be shut down for fl agrant building code violations, he says.
“You hate to think of anybody living like that, let alone kids,” he said. “It ought to be illegal for some of these places to be open. We’ve been in buildings that have no lights. The living room would be completely dark. The mailboxes are completely open.”
Scott says many parents of homeless children lack adequate education, and there aren’t enough affordable GED programs to help those parents gain basic qualifi cations for many jobs.
“We need to fi nd ways to help these families gain independence,” Scott says.
Meanwhile, he says, the lack of space in local homeless shelters means many families compete for resources.
“We had one family come to us asking for help getting into a shelter, so we called the shelter up,” he said. “Turns out there’s fi ve families competing for that one spot, and luckily our family got in, but then you wonder what happened to the other four families.”
Scott says most families of homeless children lack cars, and public transportation is lacking in Springfi eld.
“We can set you up with a job, but if it’s three buses away and you have three kids in school and have to be there when the kids get off the school bus, how are you going to work full time?” he said. “It’s impossible.”
Darla Haley, homeless children and youth liaison for Springfi eld Public Schools, says families often come to Springfi eld from other areas, putting more pressure on already overburdened relief systems.
“They think there’s an abundance of resources here because it’s the capital,” Haley explains. “We’re already ill-equipped to handle the existing families, and then there’s an infl ux of new families in need.”
She notes that every closed business in Springfi eld means fewer jobs, and too many of the remaining jobs pay low wages that can’t support a family. Couple that with an inadequate stock of affordable housing and, Haley says, the number of homeless children identifi ed in the district will probably reach 700 this school year. Without a concentrated, community-wide effort to deal with homelessness, she expects the number of homeless children to keep growing.
“All children want a safe place to call home,” she says.
In the meantime, Molly Berendt at Compass says she hopes collaboration with other agencies, churches and even businesses will help provide solutions. Ultimately, she wants to offer services to children from birth to age 18.
“Right now, even though we’re growing, we can’t grow fast enough,” Berendt says. “We focus on elementary, but we also need to take care of the middle-schoolers, the high-schoolers and the kids from birth to age fi ve. We see such a need, but we can’t do it on our own.”
--Patrick Yeagle
