New London ― In a span of two days this month, school superintendents in New London and Groton defending their budget plans pointed out the troubling trend of homeless students in their districts.
“Our homeless students here, sadly, have continued to grow,” New London Superintendent Cynthia Ritchie told members of the city’s Finance Committee on April 17. “As of today, we have 357 (students out of 3,003) classified as homeless.”
Ritchie, noting the district allots funds to help feed, clothe, and in extreme cases, house some of its students, characterized the number of homeless students so far this year as the “highest we’ve seen it.”
That same week, Groton Superintendent Susan Austin brought up the issue of student homelessness during a Town Council budget review session.
Austin, who said the district uses grant funding to provide food, supplies and clothing to needy students, argued “kids need to have their basic needs met in order to be educated.”
Three local school districts ― New London, Norwich and Groton ― last year were ranked among the Connecticut districts with the largest number of homeless students, according to data culled from the state’s EdSight educational database.
New London, with 498 homeless students, was the third-highest on the 2022-23 list, just below New Haven (719) and Waterbury (652). New Haven’s population, though, is approximately 135,000 compared to New London’s nearly 28,000, according to the latest U.S. census data.
Norwich came in 10th with 85 homeless students and Groton reached the 16th spot with 57 homeless students.
Jersahid Valencia, the New London school district’s coordinator of family engagement, said he suspects New London’s urban character is a big reason why it has so many homeless students.
“Families looking for a place to live go to where they know someone, maybe an uncle or a cousin, that they can live for a period of time while they look for their own place,” he said, noting that the “doubling-up” style of living is considered homeless under federal guidelines.
Denise Doolittle, director of pupil personnel services for Groton Public Schools, thinks the uptick in homelessness among students could be a delayed consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Groton, Doolittle said landlords are increasing the rent across the board and families are having a hard time meeting that increased monthly payment. With the influx of Electric Boat workers, landlords may be marketing some rental units to those well-paid workers, which is driving families out and limiting options for families looking for affordable housing.
The Groton district currently has 29 students identified as homeless. There are 62 students in Ivy Court, Fieldside Apartments, Phoenix Apartments and Sutton Place that potentially could be displaced due to evictions, according to Rebecca Beyus, communications specialist.
Though the numbers of homeless students in New London and Groton vary wildly from year to year, the 2022-23 school term in each of those districts marked the highest incidences of homeless students reported since the statistics became available in 2006.
The state’s database broke the 2022-23 Norwich homeless student numbers out between the Norwich Public School system (85) and those at Norwich Free Academy (51), the high school that serves the city and several surrounding towns. Last year’s total of 136 homeless students marked the highest number recorded in Norwich since the 148 recorded 2006-07.
No stable place to sleep
Connecticut uses language from the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act ― the primary piece of legislation aimed at ensuring homeless children have access to education ― to define homeless students as those lacking a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.”
The act further breaks down that residency definition into four categories: “Doubled-up,” in which a student shares housing with another person due to loss of housing or other economic hardships; hotel or motels; “sheltered,” including homeless or emergency shelters; and “unsheltered,” a category which includes those living in vehicles, abandoned buildings, public spaces or substandard housing.
Statewide, there were 5,093 homeless students in 2022-23 ― the highest number recorded by the state since 2014-15 ― with the vast majority (3,309) categorized as being “doubled-up.”
Valencia, as the district’s liaison to its homeless students, is tasked with connecting needy families to a range of community and district options, from hospitals or community groups to housing resources in neighboring towns.
“That could be transportation, supplies or even hotels,” he said on Monday. “A student can’t have success in school if they don’t have a stable place to live. And you can’t assume what segment of the population needs these services. It could be anyone.”
Valencia said a family’s housing status is self-reported during enrollment.
“I think there’s a lot more (homeless) people in New London than we know about because they don’t report that either out of fear of (the state Department of Children and Families) being called, or embarrassment,” he said. “And they don’t know about the resources out there.”
Those resources can include putting up a family in dire straits in a local hotel for a week.
“Typically, we see that need because of an eviction or some sort of emergency, like a fire,” Valencia said. “There’s a lot of people that don’t have success in finding a stable place to live because of cost or past rental history.”
New London schools in 2022-23 paid for hotel stays for 34 families. He said while the district only covers up to seven days for such stays, many families end up staying much longer.
“I know of one family, employed with two kids, that needed to move into a hotel two years ago and are still there because they can’t find their own place,” Valencia said, adding he’s worked with a handful of families living in vehicles in the last seven years and a larger number of families living in local shelters.
As of Monday, there were 21 New London students living in a shelter, according to district data, up from the 13 reported last school year.
“We’ve run out of money”
The funding for the district’s homeless-related work comes from a combination of in-house budget money and federal grants like those supplied through the McKinney-Vento Act.
“But, as of last week, we’ve run out of that money,” Valencia said.
Carrie Rivera, the district's executive director of school and student support services, said just about all the money available for homeless student services comes from McKinney-Vento grants, though there’s never any clear indication how much New London will get in any given year.
In 2021-22, the district got $108,000 in McKinney-Vento grant money, and another $108,000 in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief pandemic monies, for homeless student programming.
“But we got none last year and only $50,000 for this year,” Rivera said. “We could get more grant money as early as this summer, but we don’t get a heads-up on that.”
Rivera said the district is mandated under state law to cover the cost of transporting its students staying at out-of-town hotels, but must find alternative funding sources ― including dipping into the general budget ― for other services.
“And that’s what we’re doing now, checking with other agencies to see what they have for emergency funding,” Valencia said.
Ritchie said the district directly funds a slate of programming and positions directly related to student homelessness, including after-school activities, home visits and food deliveries.
“We’ve had to creatively combine a variety of funding sources to create these wrap-around services, including shifting money in our own budget,” she said. “And that’s all to ensure students get the best education we can provide.”
j.penney@theday.com
Day Staff Writer Kimberly Drelich contributed to this story.
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