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For more information on the nation’s homeless students, go to http://www.naehcy.org/dl/crit_mom.pdf
Trinette Gonzalez moves one of her children’s beds into his room Tuesday. The family, which moved to Abilene in June, had been designated as homeless by the Abilene Independent School District before finding a house on Orange Street.
Trinette Gonzalez talks to her sons, Divine Johnson, 7 (from left), and Domanik Johnson after moving into the family’s new home Tuesday. Gonzalez moved to Abilene from New Jersey “to make a better life.”
Thomas Metthe/Reporter-News Trinette Gonzalez (left) gives candy to her sons, Domanik Johnson (center) and Divine Johnson while they unpack their belongings in their new home Tuesday. The family was using candles for light because the electricity had not been turned on yet.
When Trinette Gonzalez moved to Abilene in June from New Jersey looking for a better life, the mother of four never thought she and her family would become a statistic.
On Tuesday, five months after pulling into her new hometown in West Texas, she finally moved into a house on Orange Street.
During the family’s time in Abilene before getting the house, her children were classified as homeless by the Abilene Independent School District.
Gonzalez said family members were forced to leave a small apartment they rented in Abilene because the neighborhood was so bad. They have relied on friends they made in Abilene — who helped them get a motel room — and the generosity of people and churches to make it this far.
”This is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Gonzalez said. “We got ourselves in a pickle looking for a job, and this is how we ended up.”
Gonzalez, whose children range from 7 to 13, said this has been the most humiliating and humbling experience of her life.
“No one should have to know what it is like to be without a home, to not know where you’re getting your family’s next meal,” she said while quietly weeping. “It is hard to help your kids keep chasing their dreams, or to do their homework, when you’re worried about them eating supper that night.”
Mike Murphy, the homeless liaison for Abilene schools, said he knows of dozens of stories like Gonzalez’s. He pointed toward the pages of data under glass on his desktop and the pile of information contained on the many sheets of paper on his desk, noting that the district has identified 743 homeless students this school year as of Tuesday. For the 2009-10 school year, 770 homeless students were identified.
If the pace continues for the rest of this school year, the district would end up with 225 more homeless students than last year.
The district, under the mandate of federal law, collects information starting the first day of school each year in an attempt to identify homeless students.
School personnel are trained to notice the signs of a homeless student, and they aid Murphy in gathering that data.
Murphy said a number of factors are used to identify a homeless student: Members of two families living together, a grandparent raising a child, and children living in a shelter by themselves or with their family are just some of the things he looks for.
Of course, the primary consideration is whether the student has a fixed, regular and adequate shelter in which to live. If the answer is no to any part of that standard, the student is identified as homeless.
Murphy can then get the students registered. This enables them to receive free meals, regardless of their family’s income.
Being registered also triggers procedures to get social services involved to aid the families.
How does a new teacher at a school identify a student who is homeless?
“I send the teachers to the cafeteria, and I tell them that 35 of the first 50 students eating will be my kids,” Murphy said. “They’ll be hunched over, elbows on the table, eating as fast as they can.”
“We do the best we can with what we have to work with,” Murphy said. “I know I couldn’t sleep at night if I knew we had a kid on the streets.”
Murphy, who has worked as the district’s homeless liaison for seven years, said identifying trends is a big part of his job, and the trends often repeat themselves.
That means if a number of homeless students are in one grade, the next year he can plan on them moving up a grade.
“But this year we’re seeing things we’ve never seen before,” he said. “This year, we’re seeing homeless kids moving into the district. We identified more than 40 homeless kids before school started.”
This trend, Murphy said, is because people are moving back to their hometown from other parts of the state and country looking for support from family and old friends to help them make it through tough times.
“You know these kids need? They need people who care,” he said.
Murphy, who grew up in Abilene but worked as a police officer in Phoenix for 20 years before moving back to West Texas, said people who can offer aid to homeless students can be a teachers, coaches, or just anyone who can be a mentor.
Martha Smallwood, who deals with homeless issues at the Region 14 Education Service Center in Abilene, said it is no surprise that families are having difficulties in this economy.
Smallwood noted that many families designated as homeless by a school district are headed by single mothers. When they lose their job, they lose their home, and the cycle continues spinning downward for them.
“When it falls apart, it all falls apart for them,” she said.
When asked how she works with people and situations that seem so sad without just stopping to weep, Smallwood said it sometimes does gets to her.
“Sometimes all I can do is weep,” she said.
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