When it comes to helping youth experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness, schools can play a surprisingly vital role in providing stability and aid — if they’re aware there’s an issue in the first place.
Oftentimes, they’re not.
Nationally, numbers for students who are eligible for services under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — which ensures equal access to education for all homeless students — are underreported. McLean County is no different.
“Part of the entire conversation around McKinney-Vento is that so much of it is hidden and hard to identify,” said Kayla Arnolts, homeless liaison for the Regional Office of Education #17, covering McLean, DeWitt, Logan and Livingston counties.
McKinney-Vento defines stable housing as fixed, adequate and regular. It covers students living on the street, living with a relative, or whose house doesn't have an essential utility, such as water or gas.
McKinney-Vento funding can aid in several ways, including tutoring, school supplies, registration fees, and in more extreme cases, temporary housing and transportation to school.
Despite the federal program's intentionally wide reach, Arnolts said families across the spectrum often don't want to be associated with homelessness.
“They don’t want that label, so a lot of families will just immediately say ‘No. No thank you. We’ll figure it out. We’re fine,’” she explained.
When this happens, students don't access even the most basic resources under McKinney-Vento, such as tutoring, she added.
In the Olympia school district, Superintendent Laura O'Donnell said school officials are aware of the identification issue. She said they currently have fewer than 10 students labeled as McKinney-Vento eligible. There are around 900 students total in the district, and O'Donnell said the number of students experiencing housing insecurity has been dropping in recent years.
“Our assumption is that our families are under reporting some of their living conditions, or not reporting their living conditions,” she said, adding Olympia wants to tackle this issue head-on through additional staff training.
Olympia family coordinator Michelle Maris said the district also is trying to work on finding more students upon registration. Administration is tweaking forms to include more user-friendly language that would classify a student as homeless under the federal guidelines without calling them homeless — so they can still get help.
“We’re hoping that maybe some families might check that box of, you know, they don’t have water, they don’t have heat, they don’t have electricity,” she said.
At the regional level, it's Arnolts' job to make sure schools and educators know how to get families help. In her role with the Regional Office of Education, she works with Olympia and other districts on training for homeless prevention services in schools.
Poverty simulation
Arnolts also did this at a recent poverty simulation recently held at the YWCA McLean County in Bloomington.
Educators in attendance assumed the role of a person in poverty, from single adults to children, and volunteers played employees at relevant agencies: the unemployment office, social services, and the schools.
They struggled weekly to make ends meet — and oftentimes didn't, skipping out on groceries for a week to pay loans, or forgoing the rent to get food.
Participants had fun during the simulation and Arnolts said that was part of the point, but she emphasized the situations were reflective of actual people, too.
“It’s real in our community,” she told the crowd, adding that at the end of February there were 600 homeless students identified across the 29 school districts she covers — and seven school districts didn’t report any students as homeless.
Susan Trammel, an art teacher at Woodland Community School District in Lake County, said in a discussion after the simulation she grew up in poverty, and participating helped her realize all her mom had done to support them.
“More people should have to come to this,” she said.
Arnolts told WGLT the poverty simulation is just one way to educate people about the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — and it doesn't encompass the entire scope of the program.
Beyond Poverty
Not everyone who is unhoused or housing insecure is in poverty. Arnolts pointed to people affected by natural disasters and house fires, that may also be eligible for McKinney-Vento resources.
The poverty simulation is valuable, she said, because it exposes people to aspects of unstable shelter not always classified as traditionally homeless, though.
“Now we have a whole community of people who went through it,” she explained.
And unlike Arnolts, the educators who attended the simulation interact with students daily. Then, there are the homeless liaisons on the front lines in each school district.
These are the people selected per federal regulations under McKinney-Vento to identify students who are eligible for services. Individual schools often have additional liaisons or other persons dedicated to this task as well.
'These are my families'
Julie Burke is the homeless liaison for District 87 and a social worker at Irving Elementary School. There are just under 200 students identified for the district as housing insecure.
As part of her role, Burke does frequent home visits to students and their families, dropping off care packages and even getting them beds when they have none. She'll also take them to doctor's appointments, the food pantry or anywhere else she is able.
“These are my families,” she said. “I care about these families, and when you meet them, you go to their homes and see what they need, you just gotta get it. You gotta get them what they need."
Many of the homeless services District 87 offers — including care packages and the beds Burke will request — are not covered by McKinney-Vento funding. Neither is food or rental assistance.
For these, Burkes relies on other funding streams, including donations, partnerships and additional Regional Office of Education grant supports.
These efforts take time, though, and while Burke has the unique ability to spend half her day working as a homeless liaison, not all of the liaisons do.
At Unit 5, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Kristal Shelvin is the homeless liaison. There are about 150 students identified as housing insecure. She said she and the district are limited in how much help it can provide.
Shelvin said Unit 5 can’t do case management — which is more of what Burke does. Instead, she said the district focuses on introducing people in need to social service agencies that can help not just students, but their entire family.
“It’s important that we’re the people who do the warm hand off to another agency,” she said.
Helping with rental assistance or securing housing for families is near impossible, Shelvin added, and that's the kind of support many Unit 5 families need.
When external funding — including a recent federal grant allocated through the Town of Normal — does become available, Shelvin said Unit 5 will try to use it for those areas McKinney-Vento doesn’t cover.
Unit 5 spokesperson Dayna Brown added the district has to prioritize funding students' success in schools.
“Our role is to break down barriers to education,” she said. “We are not a social service organization. I mean, we’re a school district, and we don’t have the capacity to do all that we wish we could.”
Arnolts with the Regional Office of Education pointed out the federal homeless assistance act only requires schools to aid students, not their families. She said districts decide where to put their resources outside of the federal law to help with items it doesn't cover.
She said assisting with housing support takes a lot more time and resources.
“It’s hard,” she said. “It’s really hard.”
At school districts with fewer students, it can be easier to provide higher levels of support.
For example, Olympia was able to partner with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services [DCFS] to make a family's home livable again.
Family coordinator Michelle Maris said DCFS is paying for electric repairs and a washer and dryer installation, and community members are stepping up to help with the rest.
“They’re gonna put new lights in, new switches, new wiring, some new drywall, they’re gonna paint the walls," she said. “That’s what we want is if we don’t have the housing provided and we know that it is inadequate that our communities can come around those families and make it adequate housing.”
Olympia also faces unique issues since students are from five counties. O'Donnell and Maris say finding the right resources for families can be difficult since it has to be in their geographic location — but they make do.
Superintendent Laura O'Donnell said the district relies on the Promise Council to fill in gaps that McKinney-Vento won't cover. State Farm helped develop Promise Councils over a decade ago to support schools. Olympia, Unit 5 and District 87 are all in the Promise Council network.
“They have bent over backward to make sure we have what we need, and our families have they need,” she said.
In Heyworth, Superintendent Lisa Taylor said six students are identified as homeless — and they all express high needs.
“But for us, because the number is so small, we tend to really target the individual families,” she said.
In addition to the district's homeless liaison, Taylor said typically the counselors and teachers know about a student's situation and can provide supports as well.
Most Heyworth students are in double up situations, Taylor added, where their family is staying with relatives or friends. The district does what it can to get students transport to school and get them classroom supplies and even clothes if needed.
Taylor said the district looks with the families for housing opportunities, but supply is an issue. There's even fewer housing options than in Bloomington-Normal.
At the same time, she said the number of homeless students is remaining consistent annually, but their needs are worsening.
“Those cases have definitely become more extreme, and I think that’s just part of not having transportation and housing and jobs,” she explained.
Housing
There's effectively no housing available in Heyworth, she added.
“Housing itself is probably the biggest limitation for everyone at this time, but especially the families facing these challenges,” Taylor said.
Olympia, Unit 5 and District 87 also mentioned housing as the largest barrier to getting students the support they may need. There's a housing shortage across the county.
And even if there was an abundance of housing, funds to support housing-specific needs are limited under federal homeless assistance, and some families might not meet rental requirements.
Arnolts said there is no one solution to the issue of youth homelessness.
“If I knew the one thing that could fix it, I’d say drop it out of the sky,” she said. “But I don’t know what it is, and so we have to work with what we have,” she said, indicating the funding for homeless assistance and prevention — and educators' abilities to make relationships with the students and families in need.
