Eddie Castro Gonzales, 14, and his mother, Maria, look homeless people straight in the eye.
It was April and they had been living with relatives in Windsor for two years when they were suddenly asked to leave. They had nowhere else to go.
In a “desperate” move, Maria Gonzales called the Catholic charity Caritas Shelter to ask if they had an area for her and Eddie, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair. Otherwise, they would be forced to move into their 2003 minivan, which was in disrepair and in need of repair.
Eddie is now one of 67 young people living in Caritas, many of whom are enrolled in Sonoma County public schools.
Over the past year, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of homeless students attending public schools, according to California Department of Education data released in June.
Sonoma County has seen a 32% increase since last year, while Napa County has grown 37. 4%. The numbers have homeless advocates and district officials wondering why.
For officials, some of this increase can simply be attributed to improved reporting practices in school districts.
Education officials have applied to teach district officials, principals and counselors about students who are considered homeless and eligible for key resources, said Joanna Paun, coordinator of youth education for homelessness and foster care at the Sonoma County Office of Education.
Stacy Desideri, Executive Director of School Welfare and Engagement for the City of Santa Rosa, serves as the district’s homeless liaison, working with the county office, school officials, and families experiencing homelessness to get their wishes fulfilled.
Desideri said they have trained everyone on how to best identify when a student is homeless and ensure a compassionate environment so families and students can feel more comfortable sharing their living status.
All school districts must comply with the McKinney-Vento Act, a federal law that defines and protects the rights and facilities of homeless children.
Under the law, the definition of homelessness extends beyond students who have a physical home, a sofa bed, or live in their cars.
The broadest definition includes those who share accommodation with the family; living in motels, hotels, insufficient trailers, or campgrounds; living in transitional shelters; or sleeping in a position other than a designated living space.
Desideri said the smallest group of students are those sleeping outside, and the building is one of those “folded” into a space intended for a single family.
It can be difficult to identify those families because they may not identify as homeless and may not know what they are eligible for, Desideri said.
“Many families facing difficult economic situations have come together in their little COVID bubbles to take care of each other,” Desideri said. “We would possibly see, with our increased post-COVID commitment, that they will come back to us. They are more willing to percentages of what they are experiencing.
The points that explain the problems of these families are difficult to identify.
“The hardest component is that families may not blatantly share all the reasons why they are not receiving housing,” Desideri said.
And much of the networkArray that was boosted in the past by declining COVID-19 funding is no longer available to families living on the margins.
“A crisis, a hiring surge, a medical emergency, … pick one thing, that’s what makes other people homeless,” said Jennielynn Holmes, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.
For Amber Elliott, it was a crisis of intellectual aptitude that followed her sobriety due to alcoholism.
“All the problems and traumas that I had repressed came back here,” Elliott said. “I couldn’t do anything and it just snowballed. ”
In 2020, she was living in a small car while pregnant with twins, who are now 3 years old.
The twins were her “saving grace” in motivating her to look for housing, she said, as well as the care provided through the Catholic charity Caritas.
One of her children is being evaluated for autism, while the other is in Caritas’ Head Start program for children five and younger, administered through the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County.
“They’re persistent here, they don’t abandon you,” Elliot said from one of the networking tables in the center’s dining room.
Once she finds housing, she plans to drop her child off in Head Start so she can continue to benefit from schooling and socializing the program with the same teachers.
“I wish them to go to school and be successful,” he said. “Preschool is a source of stability for him. “
Holmes, who oversees up to 192 citizens of the Caritas shelter in downtown Santa Rosa, said there has been a “remarkable” increase in the number of families receiving assistance from the shelter.
It saw a 49% increase in the number of domestic violence survivors in just the first six months of 2023. Many of those survivors, accompanied by children or pets, were already on the “fringe” of homelessness.
“The economy is putting pressure on Americans, and unfortunately, what I’m very afraid of is that the situation is getting worse,” Holmes said.
The one-time pandemic budget has been depleted and expanded eligibility for MediCal or CalFresh is no longer available, keeping families hungry or without health care.
Housing subsidies and systems like the American Rescue Plan Act (federal money given to cities to address homelessness or systems for children and families) are set to expire at the end of 2024.
Holmes said initial national figures from last month showing an 11% increase in homelessness in 2024 are in fact correlated with the depletion of COVID-era aid, as well as the continued lack of availability of housing and the lack of homeless prevention programs.
“That’s what we mean when we talk about investing and its direct effect on other people who are or aren’t on the streets,” Holmes said.
Statistically and anecdotally, homeless students face an uphill war when it comes to succeeding in school.
In Santa Rosa City Schools, the county’s largest district, about 64% of homeless students were chronically absent last year, according to state data.
And just over a fraction of the district’s 56 homeless scholarship recipients graduated.
Homeless students suffer intellectual aptitude problems and fatigue during classes and are punished at their school for little things, such as not showing up with required materials or not having their computer fully charged.
“It can hurt them academically,” Paun said. “They may just grade them on those things, or potentially penalize them for those things, which can lead to lower grades and embarrassment. “
Sisters Asucena, 16, and Valeria, 14, struggle to be compatible in their school environment, which has changed since the family’s apartment in Sonoma burned down in April 2023.
The two men asked to be known only by their names to preserve their family’s privacy.
In the following months, her family of five spent six months at Caritas, then nights in hotels and a double stay with other families before returning to Caritas, where they currently live.
During this time, the sisters left their home in Sonoma for Santa Rosa, and vice versa, twice.
“I had two months in which I didn’t experience anything about our situation,” Asucena said.
“When I entered second grade, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve missed out on so many things. ‘And it became complicated, that’s why I stopped going,” he added. “I thought, ‘What’s the point of Are You Going? I don’t know anything. “
Stability in school depends on stability in family life, Paun said, and the sisters have experienced more than a year of instability.
Caritas has programs in place within the shelter to address, in particular, those difficult situations before they start, said Toni Abraham, the shelter’s youth and family program manager.
Sonoma County Office of Education systems are counting on securing a $75,000 competitive grant for homeless youth.
The grant budgets the entire department, from the salaries to the school they give to students.
“One of the things that all kids need is to be fashionable on the first day of school,” Desideri said. “We make sure that no one has to wonder where their fabrics will come from. It’s one of those invisible supports that allow them to feel like everyone else. “
The district also conducts summer check-ins with homeless students, monitors their shelter status, and is on the lookout for any learning loss.
Abraham’s team worked with the county to enroll Asucena in an independent testing program, which Valeria will enroll in when she enters Santa Rosa High School in the fall.
The sisters have also partnered with Santa Rosa Recreation
Funding for homeless youth is tight, so the county wants to get artistic in its partnerships with districts and shelters like Caritas.
By comparison, young people placed by the SCOE department receive about $500,000 a year, “so even that’s very skewed,” Paun said.
“When I look around and see the magnitude of the need, it doesn’t make sense in my brain,” Paun said. “How can we be one of the richest economies in the world and yet in our small country there are over 1,000 homeless students?
The Caritas Family Centre offers reading intervention workshops, quiet places for students to study and enrichment opportunities throughout the year through partnerships, adding one with a SCOE tutor who comes to the centre twice a week to help students with their homework.
The aid is persistent and the main objectives, Abraham said, are for young people to go to school and for their fundamental wishes and those of their families to be fulfilled.
Abraham’s team works successfully, even if the ground beneath a homeless student’s feet moves.
“If they replace schools, let’s say they have housing in Petaluma, we’re going to make sure they’re connected to teachers, to transportation. . . everything they want to start and ride,” Abraham said. “That’s how we take care of them. “
Sometimes, however, coordinating with schools can be an uphill battle, especially if students are suffering outdoors from homelessness.
For Eddie, who developed a crippling disability after a spinal cord injury when he was five, getting to Windsor High School from downtown Santa Rosa took a month.
Eddie had created a formula for help at Windsor High during his freshman year there, filled with counselors he trusted and others who understood his desires and disability.
But their school district couldn’t offer them enough transportation once they moved to Caritas.
“(Abraham) was desperate. . . every day she would call, ‘Eddie wants transportation, Eddie wants tomorrow,'” his mother said.
“I missed a month of school,” Eddie said. “They brought me homework but it was difficult to do it because I didn’t have anyone to teach it to me every day. »
It is up to students to remain in their home districts even after they leave, said Desideri, who does not work for the Eddie school district but spoke about the importance of educational stability.
“Law enforcement could force them to live outside the network of their school of residence for a time, and we don’t want the family to be disrupted by that,” he said. “The relationships you have with your school are very vital and we must come together. »
Now that Eddie is attending summer school, Gonzales is able to obtain legal documents. She came to the United States from Mexico with Eddie to seek asylum after her disability progressed to paralysis, hoping to receive the proper and ongoing medical care Eddie needs.
But due to his undocumented status, Gonzales does meet the needs to care for him.
Caritas helped Gonzales join an immigration company, but the procedure is moving slowly. She sought help from his health insurance to request a new home-adapted van from a company that supports families with disabled children, but has yet to receive a response.
“We are for a space but it is complicated because I do not have social networks. . . that’s my biggest obstacle,” he said Gonzales. No I can leave Eddie. He trusts me 100%.
Asked what his plan is when his contract with Caritas expires in October, Gonzales said simply: “The street. “
The street.
Editor Alana Minkler can be reached at 707-526-8531 or alana. minkler@pressdemocrat. com. On X (Twitter) @alana_minkler.
Adriana Gutierrez, a staff member for Report For America, covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. You can get it at Adriana. Gutiérrez@pressdemocrat. com.