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Helping our homeless kids

The spiral of poverty, coupled with rising housing costs, has hit families in Washington County hard over the last few years. In 2015, according to *Community Connect, of the 1,043 households who completed an assessment for housing and client-centered services in Washington County, 48% were single adult households; 8% were two-adult households without children; and 44% were family households with children. It’s interesting to note that the Beaverton School District alone had over 1,600 homeless children during the 2014-2015 school year.

Causes of homelessness are numerous and complicated. A job loss can lead to inability to pay rent, especially if the rent goes up because of the housing shortage in the Portland Metro area. Drug and alcohol problems, domestic violence (the Sheriff recently told us it’s on the rise), and mental health issues are all hard to treat even for the affluent, and become nearly insurmountable when combined with job loss.

Currently, there are over 1500 school-age homeless kids in Washington County. Of these, around 300 are unaccompanied youth living without a parent or legal guardian. They are living in shelters, in crowded housing shared with others, in motels, and “unsheltered,” meaning they sleep outside for the most part. The Beaverton School District has an average of 5 unsheltered families at any given time during the school year.  This data is cumulative and will surely increase by the end of the 2015- 2016 school year.

Washington County's homeless family population has grown out of proportion, along with unsheltered youth without a family

The story of Josiah, as told by Mary Metheny, explains a lot.

Josiah is nearly 18; he will graduate from high school in June.  He is enrolled in honors level classes and is a scholar athlete. A handsome, well-groomed young man, he appears to have the world on a string. But Josiah is homeless.

When his home life became too chaotic for him to bear, Josiah hit the road. Drug use and sales, strangers coming and going daily, and a parent who is unpredictable and most likely mentally ill, made going home harrowing. Josiah is currently living at a friend’s home and is able to stay with this family for another few weeks. The homeless liaisons for the Beaverton School District are working with Josiah in an attempt to secure him a housing opportunity with the Second Home for Youth Program.  

Second Home for Youth is a program created to meet the unique needs of unaccompanied, homeless youth currently attending a school in the Beaverton School District. Second Home is a partnership between Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program of the Beaverton School District, the City of Beaverton’s Dispute Resolution Center, and volunteer home-providers. Caring people open their homes to provide stable housing for young people in need of the stability to complete high school. A formal agreement is part of this process. Background checks, home visits and ongoing case management provide the scaffolding required to make Second Home a viable solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem for some amazing youth.

Josiah is getting tired and is anxious about his immediate living situation. If he is matched to the correct Second Home, his future looks bright. Currently, his grades remain high and he is hopeful that scholarships will come his way. At 17, he displays amazing maturity and is realistic about how challenging the coming years are going to be. There is a meeting scheduled for Josiah and a potential Second Home family. The liaison working with him has confidence that once these people all meet this will work out well for all concerned, most especially for Josiah.

Adapted  from an article by Mary Metheney in “Street Roots,” the newspaper for homeless folks in Portland. Metheny is the retired homeless liaison from Beaverton and currently works as a McKinney-Vento Homeless Education coach for the Beaverton School District. Another Street Roots story by Jacques Von Lunen explains how Second Home came about.

The Beaverton School District, like all school districts in the United States, has a Homeless Student Services office that administers the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, a federally mandated but unfunded program. At the beginning of the recession the Beaverton School District’s Homeless Education program realized the value of community awareness and involvement in addressing their homeless student’s complex needs. As the district’s homeless student numbers were rapidly increasing, their staffing remained the same, and support resources were thin due to the high level of need in the county. Beaverton embraced the, “It Takes A Village” concept, which has helped to address gap areas of need in our Beaverton homeless population.

HELP Center staff celebrate their new home

Taking bits and pieces from other programs, a unique model emerged: a collaboration between the school district, the city and an interfaith nonprofit, which matches homeless, unaccompanied students with families. The result was a nonprofit called Second Home, which is under the umbrella of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, and which finds adults willing to take in homeless youth.

When Homeless Student Services office, which is now called the BSD HELP Center, is made aware of a student without a family who is in need of a home, their staff vets the student to see if he or she makes a good fit for the program.

Once host family and student are matched, all parties get together at the dispute-resolution center in the Beaverton mayor’s office. The mediators there put together a rental agreement between the student and the family, said Jenny Pratt, student coordinator for Second Home.

Students have to be 16 years old, which is the minimum age to rent an apartment in Oregon. The rental agreement will include provisions such as expected curfews, house rules and which chores the youth will take on in lieu of rent. In turn, the family agrees to provide a home. The students do not pay their rent in cash—in lieu of a financial rent payment they make a commitment to remain in school through graduation. Second Home helps an average of 10 to 12 kids a year.

Second Home is always interested in hearing from people who can offer a home for these students. Their website also offers other ways to support the program. Visit their website, or follow them on Facebook. To sign up to be a home-provider or for more information, please contact Laura Swartz at lswartz@emoregon.org.

A home for the homeless program

Beaverton School District’s homeless program has existed for years, but they never had much of an office. They moved from one small space to another until last fall, when Love Inc., an interfaith charitable group, provided them with the first year of rent and a remodel for a space in central Beaverton. They expect to be able to continue in this space by finding additional funding. Lisa says that having a permanent, well-equipped facility helps with the stress that inevitably comes with this job.

The comfortable reception area helps clients feel welcome, with toys for kids and books to borrow

The BSD HELP Center provides services for kids from birth to high school, including helping families find temporary and permanent housing and connecting them with a variety of services. The staff includes Ruthie Iliaifar who works 35 hours a week on school days; Lisa Mentesana who is full-time, Mary Metheny who works 15 hours a week, and Sarah Palestino, who is the full-time Bilingual Spanish Homeless Liaison.

The HELP Center is always in need of $25 Fred Meyer gift cards, loose change so homeless families can do their laundry, gift cards to restaurants, and community involvement. To learn more about how you may be able to support homeless students with your time, energy and resources please email: Lisa_Mentesana@beaverton.k12.or.us

*Community Connect is an integrated system of care that is unique to Washington County. In partnership with 20 program providers, the system is open seven days/week, operated by Community Action Organization. Community Connect uses standard assessment tools to determine appropriate housing for homeless families, and provides real-time data on the number of at risk and homeless populations in our community.

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