(Image: Chris Kindred for NPR)
When Caitlin Cheney was living at a campground in Washington state with her mother and younger sister, she would do homework by the light of the portable toilets, sitting on the concrete.
She maintained nearly straight A's even though she had to hitchhike to school, making it there an average of three days a week. "I really liked doing homework," says Cheney, 22, who is now an undergraduate zoology student at Washington State University. "It kept my mind off reality a little bit."
More than 1 million public school students in the United States have no room to Bridgeland says the centrality of school for many homeless young people is a sign of their resilience that gives him hope. In the interviews, he says, "there were [stories of ] kids begging their parents or guardians to let them stay in their home school, or let them back in or make sure they could get a ride."call their own, no desk to do their homework, no bed to rely on at night. State data collection, required by federal law and aggregated by the National Center for Homeless Education, shows the number of homeless students has doubled in the past decade, to 1.3 million in 2013-2014.
A new reportby the nonpartisan advocacy group Civic Enterprises brings the voices of these students to life.
"I've been working on the dropout problem for more than a decade," says co-author John Bridgeland. "I discovered homelessness wasn't on our radar screen and it wasn't on others' radar screens, notwithstanding this 100 percent increase."
Homeless students are disproportionately youth of color and LGBT. Other research cited in the report says 40 to 60 percent have experienced some kind of physical abuse, while 17 to 35 percent have experienced sexual abuse. And academically they are far behind their peers.
Both resources and red tape can be barriers in the way of helping these students. But on the bright side, says Bridgeland, "We're looking at schools as a hub for connecting students and families to housing, mentoring, tutoring, mental health and other services."
To read Anya Kamenetz story, please click here.
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