Of the 58,000 people sleeping in shelters on any given night, nearly three-quarters are parents and their children, who are unable to afford an apartment in our increasingly unaffordable city.
For the six-year-old living in a shelter or doubled up in the home of a family friend, the daunting prospects of learning to read and social dynamics of making new friends are fraught with the instability of homelessness. Children who are homeless are more likely to be suspended and to have behavioral issues in school. Due to the often longer commutes, they may struggle to complete their homework and study for exams. Indeed the stigma of homelessness can be a source of stress and trauma for children.
While this citywide phenomenon has received only scant attention until recently, I have been all too aware of this crisis due to the significant impact on my own community in Bronx School District 9 where a full 18 percent of the student body was in temporary housing during the 2013-14 school year, according to the Department of Education. The impact of homelessness is not abstract, but has a direct effect upon student performance in the classroom, as approximately 33 percent of students experiencing homelessness are considered chronically absent. This is not a problem limited to just one borough – instead it reaches into communities throughout the city; nearly 30,000 students resided in a shelter over the course of last school year.
Since my election to the New York State Assembly, I have been a relentless advocate for additional state funding to expand opportunities and improve results for children living in homeless shelters and I am pleased Mayor de Blasio is moving forward with a critical initiative to better support this population. His administration’s new $10.3 million investment in improving outcomes for homeless students significantly expands educational support for youth in shelters including investments in onsite literacy programs, attendance assistants to reduce chronic absenteeism, and social workers to provide emotional support for families. It also devotes funding to initiatives that ensure communication among Department of Education staffers and families to address challenges in real-time.
Coupled with a $19.5 million commitment to build school-based health centers that will expand access to health care for students living in shelters, Mayor de Blasio’s initiative is critical progress toward New York’s public education system, effectively meeting the needs of students in need of permanent housing.
And in January of this year, the de Blasio administration rectified a longstanding inequality that deprived children in shelter from access to yellow school buses. Now, thousands of children have yellow school buses picking up and dropping off children in shelters. Parents are now spared lengthy commutes to and from schools and are better able to maintain employment.
Having seen the impact of homelessness on the educational performance of students in my community, I know firsthand the challenges students and their families face in today’s difficult housing market. By building an effective partnership between our schools and our shelters – we can restore opportunities and enhance educational attainment for a generation of New Yorkers.
Assemblywoman Latoya Joyner represents the communities of Claremont, Concourse, Highbridge, Mount Eden and Morris Heights sections of the Bronx.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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There are other areas to blame besides the cost of rent. Often these children are being raised by single mothers, many of which were only teenagers when they had their first child. There is never a mention of the father nor is there ever any responsibility put upon the father. Many of these women don’t work or if they do it’s a minimum wage job, which can’t cover expenses for 1 person, let alone more than 1.
Tossing money at MORE programs on the backs of taxpayers isn’t the answer. There needs to be a REASON why there are so many homeless, including women with children. Blaming the increase in rent cannot be the only reason.