The Bastion of Hope
To a child whose home life has become undefined, unstructured, and unpredictable due to homelessness, school provides a much-needed sense of place and permanence. This milieu-a complexity of academic, professional, and social interactions-not only represents temporary freedom from the bleak realities of homelessness, it offers knowledge, skills, credentials, and hope for a stable and secure adulthood. Consequently, any barrier to school attendance constitutes a threat to a child's intellectual development, social and professional advancement, and personal security, both present and future. Under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, passed in 1987, schools must eliminate any barriers that prevent homeless children and youth from regular attendance; subsequent legislation required school districts to provide these students transportation to and from school. However, a 1998 study by the U.S. Department of Education revealed that 45 percent of children experiencing homelessness (K-12) fail to attend school on a regular basis. Despite the mandates and the tireless efforts of schools to comply, many students in homeless situations still find it difficult to attend school regularly. While the lack of a consistent and dependable ride to school each day remains the chief barrier, the reasons for attendance problems are not all related to transportation.

Given the physical as well as fiscal circumstances that define their homelessness, parents themselves cannot usually transport their children safely and dependably to school and to school-related functions. As a result, many homeless students must look elsewhere for rides to and from the school of residence, the school of origin, and special activities. Although this responsibility falls primarily to the schools per the McKinney-Vento legislation, limited budgets and manpower cannot adequately accommodate the ever-growing transient population. In spite of the government's best intentions and the schools' Herculean efforts, the homeless lifestyle simply makes it hard for kids to attend school; it may be the law, but getting homeless students safely and regularly to school and back again is not as easy as it sounds.

Obstacles and Obstructions
For one thing, the make-do living conditions of the homeless often hamper the child's ability to attend the local school. Over half of Texas' homeless population turns to shelters for temporary lodging. Since many shelters are not located on or near assigned school bus routes, children must sacrifice a convenience easily taken for granted by those living along bus routes: a free, safe, and dependable ride to school and back. The cost of public transportation, though nominal, is still beyond the means of some families experiencing homelessness. Unless the school district, shelter staff, or parents make other arrangements, the child is faced with walking (sometimes long distances, often through dangerous neighborhoods), hitchhiking (even more dangerous) or simply not attending (which endangers their entire future). As one might expect, truancy among this student population is prevalent. By their nature, shelters are temporary solutions for families who lack permanent dwellings. As such, students residing in these facilities face additional displacements and possibly more transportation dilemmas if the next accommodation also lies outside main bus routes. Students whose family turns to friends or relatives for doubled-up lodging must overcome a different yet no less unsettling set of obstacles to school attendance. For a student already emotionally raw, distressed, and disrupted by homelessness, moving into another family's home means awkward inconveniences, feelings of intrusion and powerlessness, and an amplified sense of alienation. Privacy, personal space, and individual priority are also sacrificed. If the two families' philosophies and practices are at cross-purposes so that school attendance loses its priority, or if the living conditions further complicate the student's ability to get to school regularly, the obstacles to attendance become even more daunting than those faced by students living in shelters or in rusted railroad cars. While there can be some advantages to doubling up (shared expenses, subjective awareness, domestic facilities, a sense of extended family, etc.), the guest family's values, routines, schedules, and loyalties can become lost or confused. Unless the student and his or her parents can maintain a long-term commitment to attendance at any cost under any conditions, the child can easily fall behind due to excessive absences or simply drop out and sacrifice the future that education offers.

School-of-origin issues can also interfere with student attendance. The McKinney-Vento act mandates that a student subjected to homelessness must remain in his or her school of origin if doing so is both feasible and in accordance with the parents' or homeless youth's wishes. As noted in this month's Spotlight on Service, disputed drop-off/pick-up points, communication breakdowns, and conflicting transportation policies between the residence and host schools pose challenges to the mandate. The challenges to the student and family experiencing homeless are no less intimidating. Students living in unstable environments (shelters, campgrounds, with other families, etc.) must often strive against daunting odds to maintain a schedule. An extended commute creates additional demands; should the student oversleep and miss the bus, alternative transportation to the distant school is rarely available. The student must rise early and get home late, causing the family further inconveniences and fragmentation. Even a well-rested and properly nourished student can become tired and restless during a long commute, the fatigue alone being an impediment to clear thinking. Consequently, learning can suffer and discipline problems sometimes occur. Some schools revoke bus privileges for problem students; when a student is homeless and dependent upon bus transportation, he or she is often forced to stay at home until privileges are restored. In addition, the extended commute often prevents the student from attending school-related activities if advance arrangements have not been made. The sense of isolation during long commutes, the stigma of being different from the local population of students, the loss of important social contact before and after school, and the additional separation from family can whittle away at a student's confidence and resolve, delicate commodities at best for a child already challenged by homelessness.

Another transportation-related problem that homeless students must overcome is getting to and from extra-curricular activities such as sports events and study sessions. Programs scheduled for before and after school allow students in homeless situations to participate in social and academic situations that provide important emotional, social, and scholastic support. For students who must endure the hardships and sacrifices that their family's impoverished circumstances thrust upon them, these informal venues not only enhance their regular studies and promote academic success, they allow displaced students to be part of a special group-a distinction that can assuage some of the embarrassment and ostracism that accompanies homelessness. Although equal access to extracurricular activities is required under the McKinney-Vento act, lack of transportation bars many students from attending or participating. As noted previously, homeless families often stay at facilities that are not convenient to school bus routes. Few have money for public transportation and even fewer have access to a vehicle. A student who can safely walk or bike to school for regular classes might have to do so in the dark to attend before- and after-school events-a risk that no child, homeless or otherwise, should have to take.

Try, Try Again
Obviously, the ultimate solution to these obstacles is to somehow prevent students from having to suffer homelessness altogether. Sadly, homelessness appears to be a permanent stain on our social fabric. That being the case, the penultimate solution would be to minimize the duration and detrimental effects of homelessness; a child can feasibly recover from short-term deprivation and catch up on missed lessons. Through interventions, counseling, education (scholastic and vocational), funded programs, and the kindness of strangers, many homeless families are able to fight their way back to stability and independence. Educational institutions, charged with upholding the mandates of the McKinney-Vento legislation and removing barriers to school attendance, are doing so through diligence, ingenuity, sacrifice, and perseverance. However, many attendance problems elude the efforts being made by schools, being inherent to homelessness itself. To remedy these, we as a society must continue to battle the conditions that contribute to homelessness as well as ameliorate its effects. The best hope that a student suffering the myriad effects of homelessness has for a better future is education. Another is altruism. The human condition-especially when homelessness is factored in-is fragile and complicated. Understanding the complex challenges faced by students enduring homelessness is the first step toward them.

http://www.serve.org/nche/SEASdata.htm According to a 1999-2000 survey published by the Texas Interagency Council for the Homeless, 59% of the homeless population in ten Texas cities were living in emergency shelters. (See http://www.tich.state.tx.us/pdf/HomelessSurvey.pdf )