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As Philadelphia prepares for the new school year, City Council members and others are putting intense pressure on the district to do more for homeless students.
During a City Council public hearing at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center last week, advocates and local community groups emphasized the urgent need for programs to better serve youth who are experiencing or at risk of housing insecurity. The discussion became heated at times, such as when Council Member Isaiah Thomas had an impassioned exchange with Rachel Holzman, a school district representative.
“We are blindly funding you with this enormous amount of money,” said Thomas, who chairs the City Council’s Education Committee and organized the July 31 meeting. “I wonder why no one has ever come to the City Council, driven to Harrisburg (the state capital) and said, ‘Listen, our system is not working. We are not able to properly identify young people who are homeless because we don’t have the right personnel.'”
Homelessness is far from a new problem in Philadelphia, but statistics show the problem is getting worse for the district, which identified 6,217 students as homeless in the 2022-2023 school year. That’s a nearly 46% increase from the 2018-2019 school year. For the 2023-24 school year, district officials told council members at the hearing that their initial counts show the number of homeless students is up 20% from last year.
“If this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is,” said Councilman Jamie Gauthier.
Although the district has taken steps to provide more support for homeless students, there are still gaps in what schools can offer or direct students and their families to—the district has no designated homeless resource officer positions, for example. Philadelphia’s school counselors and teachers, often already overworked, often become de facto school resource officers for students experiencing housing insecurity.
Homelessness and housing insecurity can impact everything from students’ behavior and academic progress to nutrition. Currently, a number of services are offered to homeless students in Philadelphia, including transportation, enrollment assistance, emergency funds, and more.
“Many of the homeless students I worked with struggled with their education because for many of them, their place to sleep, their next meal, and the well-being of their parents or siblings were the highest priorities, not Algebra I or English 3,” said Debora Carrera, chief education officer for the City of Philadelphia, in her testimony before the City Council.
At the hearing, Oriana F. told her own story about moving around a lot as a child. (Chalkbeat is withholding her last name for privacy reasons.) Because of the changes in schools and neighborhoods, she was put on medication for anxiety and behavioral issues.
“When I was homeless, I wish I had more support than I had then,” she said. “Someone I could talk to without being a necessary reporter and actually talk to me, and programs for people my age would help me a lot.”
At the hearing, Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center, offered a number of solutions to combat the problem: expanding housing for youth who are too old to be placed in foster care, providing school services for children in residential care, creating centralized centers in schools to monitor homeless students, and more.
Despite the council’s criticism, Rachel Holzman, deputy director of the district’s Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, stressed that the district has made great strides in addressing the problem. Holzman mentioned additional teacher training, a podcast for adults to help identify warning signs of at-risk students, and the district’s creation of a youth program to give them a voice.
The district has also partnered with various homeless organizations to better track the number of homeless youth.
Nevertheless, it became clear during the hearing that frustration with the current system continues.
Thomas told Chalkbeat in an interview after the hearing that “we still have a lot of work to do” to figure out how the city can help schools address the problem.
And Council Member Kendra Brooks also had harsh words for the district on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, saying that school counselors “are already responsible for too much. We can’t ask them to also be case managers for homeless youth. Who is responsible for providing homeless students with the resources they need?”
The federal McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act requires each school district and charter school to appoint a local homeless education officer to identify homeless students and connect them with appropriate services.
Holzman told Brooks at the hearing that every school counselor in the district “is considered a homeless officer.”
Some youth expressed a desire to provide more resources to at-risk students in their comments at the hearing.
“I can do my best work when I have a community behind me and not just sitting at a desk or on the phone,” says Kymirah B., a youth counselor and board member at Valley Youth House. (Chalkbeat is withholding her last name for privacy reasons.)
She highlighted the Synergy Project, an assistance program for homeless or similarly challenged students, and how it has supported her in her time of need.
As part of Philadelphia’s mandatory reporter training, school staff are required to notify Child Protective Services if a student tells them something potentially concerning. This can lead to complicated situations, such as students losing trust in staff. However, many of the women spoke of feeling like people were only talking to them because it was their job, not because they really cared.
“I needed a mentor, not just someone with a title,” said Kymirah B.
Azia Ross is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at [email protected].