HAMPTON — These numbers speak for themselves: There were 396 homeless children, representing roughly 200 families in the 2017-2018 school year here.
Bruce Copeland, Hampton City Schools‘ social work coordinator, said efforts in helping homeless students are made possible by the McKinney-Vento Act.
The Act
In 1987, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act became law. It required that states review and revise policies to help homeless students enroll immediately, according to a Federal Education for Homeless Children and Youths Program Profile.
The act was amended in 1990 to provide funding for those students.
There are four main focuses of the McKinney-Vento Act: Immediate enrollment, attendance, stability and success.
Any student can be enrolled in public school the day they come to the school, Copeland said.
While students do need documents such as a birth certificate and immunization records, the school doesn’t require them up front.
After that, Copeland said they will then work with the student’s family to get the information and paperwork.
The attendance part of the Act ensures that students are able to attend classes each school day.
Copeland said all parents have to do is to fill out a Homeless Family Application, and once reviewed, their application is sent to the department of transportation and something is set up.
That can be a school bus, gas vouchers for the parents, stipends for transportation, public transportation and even private vehicle transportation.
There is a very quick turnaround when it comes to those applications, sometimes same-day responses, Copeland said.
The next steps would be to ensure that those students have the same academic resources and school experience as everyone else.
A big part of those efforts is to make sure that a homeless student can remain in school.
The money for the programs comes from a $75,000 grant from the state the school system has for the next three years. This grant replaces a previous three-year grant they had.
There are a few programs the schools are using the grant for:
- Having masters-level social work interns assigned to case management for the families.
- A phone service to share information with all of the homeless families.
- A collaboration with social services called Impact Thursdays.
The Impact Thursdays program will bring resources for homeless families to a centralized location.
Defining homelessness
For a student to be considered homeless, he or she has to be either living in an unstable environment — or no home at all. This can mean doubling up, living in a hotel or motel, being unsheltered or sheltered.
Being doubled up is living with a relative temporarily, living unsheltered can mean living in a car and living sheltered means they are staying in a shelter — Copeland said the biggest issue is that there is not enough room for families in shelters.
Most of the homeless students are either doubled-up or living in a motel or hotel, Copeland said.
