The Trenton Times published the following article on February 25, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton Board of Education reports about 200 students are homeless

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on February 26, 2013 at 7:15 AM

TRENTON — School board members asked for the district to provide more hands-on attention to homeless families and students after a presentation last night revealed that about 200 current students have no permanent housing.

According to the presentation, made by student services director Arcelius Brickhouse at the request of board vice president Sasa Olessi Montaño, 228 students — about 1.6 percent of the district’s students — were counted as homeless during the 2012-2013 school year. Of those students, 184 currently attend Trenton public schools, while the others have since left the city.

Brickhouse said 125 of the student were in the district’s elementary schools. The others included 25 high school students, 34 middle schoolers, 20 preschool students and 24 children who were not school age.

Brickhouse gave a rundown of the $1.19 million Trenton has received in federal McKinney-Vento homeless grants over the past five years, which has paid for supplemental services for homeless kids, including afterschool tutoring, weekly art classes and other recreational programs.

The district also contracts with the Lawrence nonprofit HomeFront to provide emergency and transitional housing, rent assistance, food, clothes and other supplies and services to local homeless families.

The district shares a homelessness liaison staffer with districts in Burlington and Atlantic counties, Brickhouse said. But board members said they were concerned the district was handing off all its homeless cases to HomeFront and not doing enough to help families and students who may not know where to get help when they find themselves on the street or about to lose their home.

“There is some community clamor over how responsive we are to people before they get urgently homeless,” board president Toby Sanders said.

Sanders said he was contacted last year by several parents and students on the brink of homelessness who did not know what services were out there for them or did not receive calls back from school staff they contacted for help. He also said the district needs to provide more follow-up than simply handing out a phone number for HomeFront or other agencies and making a quick referral.

“What I’m suspicious of or what I worry about is there are people that have homeless situations that don’t realize there are services available to them,” he said. “Five of the seven cases that came to me have been high school students homeless because of a situation at home. They didn’t know that the district has resources for them.”

Brickhouse said the district recently placed information on its homeless services online on the district’s website, but Sanders said that wasn’t enough.

“That’s all good, Mr. Brickhouse, but I am quite sure if you’re homeless, you’re computer-less for the most part,” Sanders said.

Olessi Montaño said she was particularly concerned about older high school students who might be thrown out or have to leave their homes, and making sure they knew they could talk to a principal or counselor and be given advice and referrals to find housing and support.

“We need to make information known to the community and parents,” board member Denise Millington said. “If they don’t know we can help with these services, they’re not going to come looking for help. The people I’ve known who have been homeless don’t want everyone to know they’re homeless because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their kids.”

Sanders said because of that and fears about their immigration status some people hide their homelessness, and he said the district’s homeless population is almost certainly higher than the 228 students identified this year.

Board members asked Superintendent Francisco Duran to provide a short report detailing the district’s response to homeless students and ways to increase homelessness outreach.

Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com.