Bouncing Among Shelters and Among City Schools, NY TIMES, September 19, 2004
By SUSAN SAULNY

Jacqueline Fortunato had a choice to make last week: she could either use the $20 she borrowed from a friend at the homeless shelter where she lives to take her family's clothes to the laundry, or put the money toward bus and train fare to shuttle her two oldest boys to their elementary schools.

It was a hard decision for Ms. Fortunato, who wanted her sons to wear clean clothes to class. So she did the laundry by hand, saving the dollars that would have gone into washing machines and dryers, and bought a MetroCard.

Although no one had told her, it was a choice that Ms. Fortunato did not have to make. Under the law, buses should have picked the boys up at the shelter and delivered them to their schools; the city is supposed to provide free transportation along with a host of other social services intended to make sure that they can continue at their old schools.

Ms. Fortunato is hardly alone in her struggle, according to a report to be released today by Assemblyman Scott Stringer of Manhattan. Last year, about 50 percent of the 15,800 homeless children living in New York City shelters transferred to a new school. Some 146 students ended up transferring four or more times as their families moved around the system, Mr. Stringer said. He contends that the high number of transfers is mostly a result of the lack of transportation available for students who find themselves being shifted among the city's shelters.

The report, "Homeless Students Dismissed," also found that absenteeism was a chronic problem among homeless children, with 40 percent of those in shelters absent more than 21 days last year, up from 35.9 percent in 1999. Mr. Stringer said that the absenteeism had ripple effects: homeless students repeat grades more often than children from stable homes, and they are often relegated to bottom-tier schools because of poor attendance records and grades.

According to the report, during the school year that ended in June, 69 percent of homeless students attended nonselective or failing high schools and a third were held back from advancing to the next grade.

The 22-page report, prepared by Mr. Stringer and his staff, was based on figures from the city's Department of Education that were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, interviews with homeless families and interviews with experts and service providers in the field, Mr. Stringer said.

Jim Anderson, a spokesman for the city's Department of Homeless Services, which operates the shelters, disputed some claims in the report. He said that the Department of Education maintained a presence in all city shelters, arranged transportation for homeless students and encouraged school attendance.

"It's something we do on a day-to-day basis," Mr. Anderson said, although he said he was not able to cite any statistics. "It's just part of the work we do." Mr. Stringer and advocates for the homeless contend that the state is poorly administering the recently expanded McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, federal legislation that was intended to remove barriers and solve problems faced by homeless children in obtaining an education.

The act provides grants and requires each of the country's 15,000 school districts to designate a liaison for homeless children; the liaison's duties include searching for children living in shelters, motels, campgrounds, and other irregular residences, helping them enroll in school, and ensuring that they get some medical care. It also requires districts to provide free transportation so that homeless children can attend one school consistently, even if their families are moved about seeking shelter or jobs.

But according to the report, New York State has largely ignored the law, failing to inform parents of their rights, or to collect data intended to indicate which districts were in compliance with the law. The report also said that without the correct data, the state was unable to qualify for all the federal funding available for helping the homeless. The report, for instance, said that the city's Department of Education had applied to serve only 8,872 homeless students last year, when thousands more were in the system.

Steven Banks, the attorney-in-chief of the Legal Aid Society, noted that the city has been under court order since 1984 to provide transportation allowances so that homeless children and their parents are able to commute between shelters and schools. The order predates the McKinney-Vento legislation.

"Unfortunately, homeless children are caught up in a tangle of multiple state and city agencies," Mr. Banks said. "Children are literally falling between the cracks and not getting to school."

The bleak findings of Mr. Stringer's report are supported by local and national experts who have studied the issue of homelessness and access to education in New York.

"The report mirrors a study we did about a year ago," said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for the Homeless. "For us, one of the largest issues is school mobility. If you look at all the studies, one of the things we know is that school mobility is a real predictor of school failure."

A spokesman for the New York State Department of Education, Tom Dunn, issued a statement on Friday, saying that the state's coordinator of homeless education, Sheila Evans-Tranumn, was the only person who could answer questions related to the administration of McKinney-Vento programs and that she was traveling and could not be reached. But he said in the statement that the state was "carrying out its responsibilities under the law."

"We have already met with officials of the New York City Department of Education about compliance issues, including transportation,'' the statement said. "As part of our monitoring function, we will continue to meet as appropriate to resolve outstanding compliance issues.''

Jerry Russo, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's press secretary, said, "We will continue working with homeless services, the State Education Department as well as the advocates to make sure none of our children are deprived of an education."

An official with the federal Department of Education said that states were monitored for compliance on a rotating schedule, and that New York was not scheduled for a monitoring visit for at least another year. The official, Gary Rutkin, said two complaints have been filed against the state for noncompliance with McKinney-Vento on Long Island.

Jerry Simes, a lawyer representing homeless families in a lawsuit in those cases, said the state was basically ignoring its most vulnerable population. His suit was filed in Suffolk County.

"What we're seeing in Suffolk we're seeing in other parts of the state because no one in Albany is really watching the problem," Mr. Simes said.

The policy director of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, Barbara Duffield, said that other cities with populations similar to New York's were doing a better job of providing services to homeless students. She praised Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.

"There are programs and people out there across the country who are making life better for these kids," she said. "That makes lapses all the more inexcusable."

Maria Foscarinis, a founder of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, in Washington said: "Under federal and New York State law, the state is required to ensure that homeless kids get access to schools. The requirement is squarely on the state. I don't know what's going on in the state, but it's discouraging."

Ms. Fortunato, meanwhile, said she was worried about tomorrow morning and getting her children to school. She said that even though she told officials at her sons' schools that the family had moved to a shelter a week before school started, buses were still showing up at her old address.

"It's frustrating," she said. "It seems I never have enough energy for this.''

March 2, 2003, Sunday
THE CITY WEEKLY DESK, NY TIMES
NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: NEW YORK UP CLOSE; For Homeless Families, A Tiring Trek to School

By KELLY CROW (NYT) 461 words
For months, René Whitehead struggled in the mornings, waking her three daughters at 5 a.m. so that the family could travel two hours by bus and subway to get to school. The Whiteheads live at the Saratoga Family Inn, a homeless shelter in Jamaica, Queens, but the girls' schools were in East Harlem.
Ms. Whitehead said she did not mind the long commuting when the family moved to the shelter 11 months ago. Recent changes to the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act had allowed her to keep her children at their old schools. Under the former rules, they most likely would have been reassigned to schools closer to their shelter.


The goal is continuity for children, but some feel it has backfired. ''In the beginning, I felt like making the sacrifice because my girls needed a sense of normalcy,'' Ms. Whitehead said. ''But we never felt rested; we were always stressed and sitting on a train.''

The Whiteheads are not alone. A new study by the Institute for Children and Poverty and Homes for the Homeless, which oversees the Saratoga, showed that 34 percent of the children there spend more than an hour traveling to school. The study was conducted at the Saratoga last spring and released last month.

The National Coalition for the Homeless has criticized the study, saying it glosses over the law's nuances. But Laura Caruso, the institute's managing director, said the study highlights a kink in the homeless laws that has primarily affected families in big cities.

Although homeless parents may choose to keep their children in their old schools, Ms. Caruso said, too few parents are given details about schools closer to their temporary homes. The city needs to do a better job of educating these parents about their options, she said.

She added, ''We have a good piece of legislation, but we're dealing with an unintended side effect that needs addressing.''

James Anderson, a spokesman for the Department for Homeless Services, said his office had seen the study and was planning to rework its programs so families can be placed in homeless shelters closest to their children's schools. Such placements can eliminate long commuting and educational disruption, he said.

Ms. Whitehead has chosen to discontinue her commuting. Last Monday, she transferred her daughters to schools 15 minutes from the Saratoga.

''Yesterday morning was nice,'' she said. ''I woke up at 7, put them on a bus, and waved.''

HOMELESS STUDENTS DISMISSED:
An Investigation of New York State Education Department's Failed Education of Homeless Children and Youth in New York City