0.12 Safer, l., wilhite, r., sims, p., mann, s., & Kroeger, t.

Ncpea education leadership review: portland conference special edition, volume 12, number 3 (october 2011)

Introduction

It’s difficult for Daniel to stop smiling. The 13-year-old New Orleans native and honor roll student seems to have an eternal giggle; a pervading happiness that he brings everywhere he goes. Daniel’s optimism is contagious and remarkable in itself. What makes Daniel’s brightness exceptional is the fact that he is a Hurricane Katrina transplant and now living homeless on the South Side of Chicago. But in the face of homelessness’ dark and mountainous challenges, Daniel beams.

Still the hurdles facing Daniel are staggering. He lives in a drab, humid homeless shelter with his mother and 4-year-old brother. Inside, the shelter is chaotic. Babies cry constantly. Some mothers scream, cursing at their children and each other. Daniel is the second oldest male in the shelter, which provides refuge to female victims of domestic violence. Only the shelter coordinator, a middle-aged man, is older. The streets outside are at times a warzone. While Daniel has been living here, a teenage boy was fatally shot only a few doors away from his shelter residence.

Daniel persists despite the chaos and haze of homelessness. But unfortunately, Daniel is not alone. In the City of Chicago at least 12,685 students (11,117 African-American, 1,280 Hispanic, 227 White, 61 other) were identified as homeless in 2009. The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) projects this number to climb to 15,000 in 2010. More than 3,000 CPS students live in homeless shelters similar to Daniel’s. Of this number, 41% of the homeless children attended two different Chicago schools within one school year, while 28 % attended three or more, thus only accentuating their loss of educational time and exposure to instruction in the classroom (3-6 months of potential academic loss with every move) while also impacting their cognitive development, behavior, and physical and mental health (Chicago Public Schools Homeless Education Statistical Report, 2009).

Approximately 1.35 million children will experience homelessness over the course of a year. In any given day, it is estimated that more than 200,000 children have no place to live. Families of color are overrepresented in the homeless population; nationally 43% are African-American, 38% White, non-Hispanic, 15% Hispanic and 3% Native American. 42% of children in homeless families are under the age of six. (National Center for Family Homelessness, 2008).