Home and Schools:
The Top
Priorities of Homeless Kids
By Eva Moskowitz
During the last school year, homelessness hit an all-time
high in New York City. Since 1998, the shelter population increased
by 73 percent to the highest number in city history: more than
36,400 homeless, 15,300 of them children. Some 77 percent of
those living in the shelters are families with children.
I have supported Coalition for the Homeless in their efforts
to enhance the lives and the education of homeless children
by funding a summer camp. At a national summit of homeless
youth convened by Coalition for the Homeless in New York City
this summer, children identified their top concerns as: 1)
housing and 2) education.
The City must do more to address the pressing housing issue.
A suit brought by Coalition for the Homeless and Legal Aid
Society on behalf of a homeless mother made its way through
the courts for more than two decades until the parties reached
a settlement late last year. A court-ordered panel then urged
the City this year to improve the dilapidated Emergency Assistance
Unit (EAU) in the Bronx, the first stop for families when they
lose the roof over their heads.
While the Bloomberg Administration's plans to revamp the EAU
will help, more affordable housing is also needed. The number
of homeless families declined after the Koch Administration spurred
the construction of 150,000 new units of affordable housing,
10 percent of them for homeless families, two decades ago. We
now have twice as many homeless people, but Mayor Bloomberg is
proposing only 65,000 units, with a much smaller share for homeless
families.
The City must also work harder to keep uprooted families connected
to their children's schools. The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act requires the Department of Education to place
liaisons in shelters to help homeless children get to school.
However, these liaisons do not exist at shelters for families
escaping domestic violence, which means the Department of Education
is missing roughly a third of the homeless students, according
to Advocates for Children, a non-profit group that helps homeless
families.
Advocates for Children also reports that the Department of
Education denies transportation to many homeless students,
and that the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance
tells homeless parents that they are ineligible for transportation
vouchers to take their small children to school. These actions
violate the provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act that guarantee
homeless children transportation to the school they attended
before they became homeless.
When children lose their home, they should not lose their
teachers as well. Now that the mayor directly controls the
school system, it should be easier for the Department of Education
to coordinate with the Department of Homeless Services and
other government agencies to make sure that homeless students
are identified and helped.#
Eva Moskowitz is the Chair of the New York City Council Education
Committee
