Program Helps Homeless Youth Get Into College and the Workforce

Program Helps Homeless Youth Get Into College and the Workforce

The national nonprofit SchoolHouse Connection draws on partnerships with schools, service providers, families and youth.

State Legislatures NewsPolicyEducationHuman Services

Speaking to legislators and staff about their experiences with homelessness were, from left, Conrad Ontimara, Jessica Kramer, Lexi Geampa, Jordan Solstice and Z'haria Anderson.

Conrad Ontimara was just a baby when Hurricane Katrina wiped out his family's home outside of New Orleans. It led to years of troubles: His parents lost their jobs and turned to drugs. At times, the family of six lived in shelters or their car.

"I was watching my parents shoot heroin at 6 years old," Ontimara told attendees at NCSL's recent Youth and Young Adult Policy Forum. "And that's just something that a child shouldn't have to go through."

By the time he was a teen, his father had been murdered during a drug run, and his mother died from an overdose.

"I don't want you guys to feel bad when I sit up here and trauma dump," Ontimara told legislators and staff attending the session. "I want you all to try to get something from it and maybe change the policies in your state that could affect a student who is going through what I've experienced."

Related: How to Help Homeless Students? First Learn Who They Are.

Ontimara is one of five students who spoke about the kind of challenges many adults would be hard-pressed to navigate. And they described what got them through. They are all part of the SchoolHouse Connection scholarship program, which assists young people who have experienced homelessness get "to and through" higher education and into the workforce. Now, four of the students, including Ontimara, are enrolled in college, and one is working full time with plans to go to college this fall.

Lexi Geampa grew up in Newport, Ore., with parents who struggled with mental health disorders and substance abuse.

"This led me to enduring neglect both physically and emotionally," she says. "I was exposed to a lot of violence within their social circles. Ultimately, I made the decision to leave the situation because I didn't feel like I was in a safe home and saw myself going down a bad path if I kept being around these people."

Geampa managed to find places to stay with friends' families-six different families from eighth grade to graduation-but it was a constant challenge. She was never identified by her school as homeless, and she didn't see herself that way because she thought it meant living on the street. As a result, she didn't get connected to most of the support systems that could have helped with health care, transportation and mental health. But she was determined to do well in school. Now she is in her third year at Oregon State University, studying child development and education.

Taking Charge

Jessica Kramer faced homelessness in Missouri with a mother who was often unable to manage their needs.

"There were many times in crisis when she would become overwhelmed," says Kramer, who began taking charge when she was just 13.

"I frequently had to step in to make decisions about how we would get around town, how we would get transportation, where we would live at times, what bills we could afford to pay that month and which ones we could push off," she says. "This was a very terrifying experience for me as a young adult, because I knew I wasn't prepared to make those decisions."

Kramer is attending college but couldn't go far from home so she can continue to assist her mom.

Z'haria Anderson, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, also dealt with the effects of her parents' mental illness at an early age.

"My first parental separation was at the age of 10," Anderson says. "I was placed into the foster care system with my younger brother, but unfortunately, I experienced a lot of abuse. I was permanently separated from my younger brother, who I have never lived with again to this day."

Amid the turmoil in their lives, it was hard for these students to recognize any options, either for support at the time or for a brighter future. They each knew that having an education was important, but just getting to school on a given day could be a challenge.

Anderson says she got vouchers to use the city bus, but the trip took two different buses and they often ran late, so she'd get to school late.

"This was challenging enough, but having my teachers discourage me or make comments about how I don't care about school, or I don't try, even though my academics said otherwise-it was very disheartening," says Anderson, who graduated high school this spring and will attend college in the fall.

"Having my teachers discourage me or make comments about how I don't care about school, or I don't try, even though my academics said otherwise-it was very disheartening."

-Z'haria Anderson

The students say they got varying degrees of help from their schools. And even if teachers or counselors knew of their situations, they didn't always know about available resources.

The students also had mixed feelings about being identified as a kid with a problem. They worried they'd be ostracized, or that the state would come after their parents or separate them from their siblings.

When his parents were alive, Ontimara says sometimes, the schools called state protective services.

"Child protective services would show up at our house, and my parents became experts on hiding basically everything they could just so they could pass inspection, and then we go back to living the same cycle," he says.

On the other hand, those who would have welcomed some intervention say it didn't happen. As a teen, Jordan Solstice tried to care for his siblings to make up for an absent father and a substance-abusing mother.

"I would make sure they woke up in the morning for school, eat, dressed, out the door on time," Solstice says. "I would make sure when they got home their homework was done, they were fed, bathed."

Solstice says while there were programs in his home state of Alaska and aid for Native families like his, they didn't get access to many of them because there was a sense of taboo and a daunting bureaucracy. What they did get didn't always help the children.

"My mother would use those resources not towards us but towards her drug abuse and would frequently sell things like food stamps in order to get cash for her drugs," Solstice says.

A Caring Adult Can Make a Difference

These students had a hard time imagining they could ever go to college, but they each found at least one adult in their lives who helped them. For some, it was a teacher who invited them to eat lunch in their classroom; others found a guidance counselor or a therapist through a state or school program. And all of them say the mentorship through SchoolHouse Connection has been vital.

Jordyn Roark, the organization's director of youth leadership and scholarships, says the students' stories illustrate the powerful effect that a caring adult can have in young people's lives.

"Some of my (scholarship) students live in states that have really stellar resources, and they do really well," Roark says. "(But) I hate to think that the state a student is born in, the school that a student attends, determines their fate."

She urged the lawmakers to "figure out what resources are available in their states and what you can replicate within your own."

The students had their own takeaways for the legislators to help other students in similar situations. Geampa advocated mentorship programs. Kramer urged support for financial literacy. Solstice said early access to affordable mental health resources would have made a big difference in his life.

Anderson says she wants a more concerted effort to identify students who need help and connect them with available resources. "I, as well as a lot of other people, have walked past our school's food bank without even knowing (what) it was," she says.

Ontimara suggests a different focus entirely.

"If you really want to help the youth," he says, "you have to start by helping the parents.'"

Kelley Griffin produces and hosts NCSL's "Across the Aisle" podcast.