Homeless on Campus
Bader, Eleanor J.
Homeless on Campus By Eleanor J. Bader Illustration by Sharon Eisley Aesha is a twenty-year-old at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. Until the fall of 2003, she lived with...
...He told LeTendre staffers that his mother threw him out because he did not get along with her boyfriend...
...Therefore, our student support services are developed within that framework...
...Critics say colleges are not doing enough to meet-or even recognize-the needs of this group...
...Individual colleges have come forward to help specific people, but there is nothing systematic like there is for students in elementary and high school...
...There is a very low awareness level amongst colleges," Duffield adds...
...But few homeless students are so lucky...
...They've all said that as long as I keep up with the work I'll be OK," she says...
...I'd stay with whoever would take me in and allow me to live under their roof...
...Despite these programmatic shortfalls, Gesing encounters two to three homeless students-often single parents-each semester...
...Because of this statistical gap, programs are not devised to accommodate homeless students or address their needs...
...People have this you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps' myth about college...
...I've seen it happen," says Amit Rai, an English professor at a large, public university in Florida...
...Without housing, access to a work space, or access to a shower, students' lives suffer, their grades suffer, and they are more likely to drop classes, if not withdraw entirely from school...
...Mary Gesing, a counselor at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, agrees...
...One of the students she sheltered lived in the space for three months, whenever she couldn't stay with friends...
...Eleanor J. Bader had the privilege of teaching Aesha in the fall 2003 semester...
...As an urban community college, our students are commuters," responds Uda Bradford, interim dean of student affairs at Kingsborough Community College...
...Now the poor are less visible...
...It's not that colleges are not concerned, but attention today is not on serving the poor," says Susan O'Malley chair of the faculty senate at the City University of New York...
...In addition to working as an adjunct instructor, Bader is a freelance writer and the coauthor of "Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism...
...Yet, for all the anecdotes, details about homeless college students are hazy...
...Like Aesha, this student was fleeing a partner who beat her...
...Things at home were fine until her child's father became physically abusive...
...Although there is no institutional interest or involvement in keeping these students enrolled, a few faculty members really care about the whole student and don't shy away from helping," she says...
...Originally from Somalia, he and his family fled their homeland due to civil war and ended up in a refugee camp in neighboring Kenya...
...Most educational institutions were set up to serve fewer, less diverse, more privileged students," says Andrea Leskes, a vice president with the Association of American Colleges and Universities...
...Even when doubled up, students in the most expensive states-Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland-are scrambling...
...But that is not easy for Aesha or other homeless students...
...They have a child care center on my campus, but they only accept children two and up...
...B.R., a faculty member who asked that neither her name nor school be disclosed, has allowed several homeless students to sleep in her office during the past decade...
...They knew that school would be their saving grace, that knowledge was the only thing that couldn't be snatched...
...They fall off the map...
...I wish statistics existed on the number of homeless college students," says Barbara Duffield, executive director of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth...
...A native of Sparks, Nevada, Broadway told the LeTendre Education Fund for Homeless Children, a scholarship program administered by the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, that she left home when she was thirteen...
...If seen from the perspective of students, administrators would place affordable housing and full access to health care at the top of what a university should provide...
...I spend almost eight hours a day on the trains," she says...
...Until the fall of 2003, she lived with five people-her one-year-old son, her son's father, her sister, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend-in a three-bedroom South Bronx apartment...
...It's not in fashion...
...Although Aesha believes that she will be able to stay in this facility until she completes her associate's degree, the ordeal of being homeless has taken a toll on her and her studies...
...Thanks, in part, to these funds, all three have been attending college and doing well...
...Aesha and her son spent several nights in the EAU before being sent to a hotel...
...Both of the students finished school and went on to become social workers...
...The administration never knew a thing...
...Others lost their housing because they could no longer pay for it due to a lost job, the termination of unemployment benefits, illness, the cessation of child support, or drug or alcohol abuse...
...She chose him over me," he wrote...
...Such students usually try to blend in and are reluctant to disclose either their poverty or homelessness to others on campus, she says...
...Asad Dahir has also spent time on the streets...
...Advocates for the homeless report countless examples of students sleeping in their cars and sneaking into a school gym to shower and change clothes...
...It was horrible," Aesha says...
...She also believes that the college should maintain emergency housing for homeless students...
...Nobody has ever thought about this population or collected data on them because nobody thinks they are a priority to study" says Martha Burt, principal research associate at the Urban Institute...
...Then I have to travel to school in Brooklyn- the last stop on the train followed by a bus ride- another two hours away...
...There, high housing costs once again rendered the pair homeless...
...As a result, we are not successfully educating all the students who come to college today...
...After a few days, they were returned to the EAU, where they remained until they were finally moved to a family shelter in Queens...
...Once state and federal responsibility to homeless kids stops-at the end of high school-it's as if they cease to exist...
...Worse, they are neither counted nor attended to...
...Hecker blames rising housing costs for the problem and cites a 2003 survey that found the median wage needed to pay for a two-bedroom apartment in the United States to be $15.21, nearly three times the federal minimum...
...What often comes through is shame...
...During the 1960s, people from all over the country were going to Washington and making a lot of noise...
...The school should do more," says Aesha...
...Broadway, Montgomery, and Dahir are three of the forty-four homeless students from across the country who have been awarded LeTendre grants since 1999...
...Sadly, this proved to be a temporary respite...
...The War on Poverty was influenced by this noise...
...Johnny Montgomery also became homeless in his early teens...
...Shortly thereafter, Aesha realized that she and her son had to leave the unit...
...Adriana Broadway lived in ten places, with ten different families, during high school...
...Kirkwood's approach is a "patchwork system," Gesing explains, and homeless students often drop out or fail classes because no one knows of their plight...
...I get to her house around 7:00...
...When people don't know who to come to for help they just fade away," she says...
...Hard days and hard nights have shaped me...
...Both students showered in the dorms and kept their toothbrushes and cosmetics in one of the two department bathrooms which I gave them keys to," B.R...
...Part of the problem is that the demographics of college attendance have changed...
...Nothing formal exists for this population, and the number of homeless students on campus is not tracked," she says...
...Another student had been kicked out of the dorm because her stepfather never paid the bill...
...We slept on benches, and it was very crowded...
...This means that nontraditional students-the older, returning ones as well as those from low income or other disenfranchised communities-often receive inadequate support services...
...Much of that time was spent on the streets...
...This student stayed in my office for an entire semester," B.R says...
...For five years, I stayed here and there with friends," she wrote on her funding application...
...After more than a year in the camp, he and his thirteen-year-old brother were resettled, first in Atlanta and later in Ohio...
...A sympathetic cleaning woman knew what was going on and turned a blind eye to the arrangement...
...Some became homeless when they left an abuser...
...Reluctantly, Aesha felt that she had no choice but to confide in teachers and explain her periodic absences...
...Each year at our national conference, homeless students come forward to share their stories," says Jenn Hecker, the organizing director of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness...
...As far as I know, no college has ever asked for help in reaching homeless students," says Mary Jean LeTendre, a retired Department of Education administrator and creator of the LeTendre Education Fund...
...After spending thirty days in a temporary shelter, they landed at the city's emergency assistance unit (EAU...
...adds...
...She applied for financial assistance to cover the cost, but processing took months...
...Most feel as though they should be able to cover their costs...
...Yet for all this, individual teachers-as well as administrators and counselors-can sometimes make an enormous difference...
...It would have helped if I could've brought my son to day care at school...
...for the Bronx where my girlfriend watches my son for me...
...I was so scared I sat on my bag and held onto the stroller day and night, from Friday to Monday...
...I've been homeless more than one time and in more than one country," Dahir wrote on his scholarship application...
...There is a real gap between the myth and the reality for those who are trying to overcome poverty by getting an education...
...I have to leave the shelter at 5:00 a.m...
...They speak of students who couch surf or camp in the woods-bicycling or walking to classes-during temperate weather...
...In any given semester, there are four or five families where the head of household is in college," says Beth Kelly, a family service counselor at the Clinton Family Inn, a New York City transitional housing program run by Homes for the Homeless...
Vol. 68 • July 2004 • No. 7
