Children Suffering From Housing Crisis
Cherish Brisbane is trying to make new friends at her new school, Owen Academy, her second school this year near the homeless shelter in Highland Park that is now home. She misses her dog, Precious, her school, her old friends, and the house they used to live in that she called home. Cherish is but one 8-year-old victimized by the growing number of children who are now homeless due to the foreclosure crisis. The worst of it is showing up in Metro Detroit, where the number of kids having no fixed address anymore has increased more than seventy percent in the last three years. Cherish is living in the second shelter since her family was evicted due to foreclosure in November 2007.
The Michigan Department of Education estimates it’s serving 20,000 homeless students with 3,540 in Detroit. And those the kids they have found out about. The numbers continue to increase.
Homeless children make a big impact on school districts who also struggle to make ends meet in an inflated economy. Federal law states that schools lose money for every child not attending class. In Michigan, the education department is required to work with the homeless who have school age children. Homelessness is extremely hard on children’s emotional, mental, and academic development, experts say. Federal law requires school assist homeless children by finding relatives for them to live with, or shelters.
The Oakland County Intermediate School District estimates that about 5,000 homeless children live in that county, but only 1500 will seek services with the ISD’s homeless program. This is because most parents are ashamed to report that they are homeless. They are also afraid that Children’s Services will get involved and put their children in foster care.
Mathews, 18, rises at 4 a.m. each day to prepare for the two-hour bus ride to school. He has maintained a B average though he doesn’t even have a place to do homework in the small room he shares with his mother and five siblings. “Here (in the shelter) it’s a lot of arguing, people getting into fights, and I’ll sit in my room and try to study,” he said. “With the proms and the parties, I haven’t had a chance to party at all; I stay here because I don’t want to be the one out partying when my family’s staying in a shelter.” Children feel the shame of homelessness deeply, according to Carl Taylor, a sociology professor at Michigan State University who has spent more than 20 years studying children in urban communities, according to the Detroit News.
“I always do my homework,” Cherish said. “I sit on the bed, and I put the paper on my notebook so my pen doesn’t poke through the mattress.”
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