Page 8
Street Roots • June 8-14, 2018
Rural Housing
Street Roots • June 8-14, 2018
Rural Housing
Page 9
'S
w Housing Rural Oregon
Coastal Crossroads
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Simulating poverty
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Oregon's coastal communities are struggling with a housing crisis all their own -
one that's gotten worse every year following the Great Recession. Short-term
vacation rentals, generational poverty, an increasingly visible wealth divide and
aging populations have all pushed coastal communities to an irrevocable
reckoning. For these communities to have a viable future, something has to
change, but what?
Teachers get schooled on living with poverty
and homelessness - experiences many of their
students face every day
" I felt like more people within onr district, who
have contact with kids, need to understand that this
is not their fault. How can we build more empathy
and understanding of these children who are
homeless, in foster care, almost homeless?"
MELINDA TORRES
BY EMILY GREEN
community is struggling with housing and
poverty issues of its own, where demand for
housing outweighs supply and costs outpace
magine you’re a single mother trying to
incomes. A side effect is that many children
support two school-aged children on low
are either experiencing homelessness, or
wages earned working two jobs. You’ve
just paid your car insurance and utility bills, their parents are heavily rent burdened.
In Coos County, 30 percent of children
when the transmission on your 1997 sedan
live in poverty and nearly half qualify for
gives out, and with it goes your only means
free or reduced lunch, according Children
of transportation to your graveyard shift
First for Oregon’s 2017 County Data Book.
cleaning offices. Public transportation in
The Coos Bay School District has been
your neighborhood doesn’t run at night.
hit particularly hard. As of April, 390 of the
With no money for repairs, you miss
3,100 children in the district had
work, you get fired, you don’t make rent,
experienced homelessness this school year,
and the downward spiral begins. You spend
said Melinda Torres, who works as both the
the last of your cash taking the bus to job
ARK Program manager and the homeless
interviews and social-service agencies,
liaison and for the district.
looking for any way to keep a roof over your
Torres fulfills her two roles « both aimed
kids’ heads. Just when you think things can’t
at serving impoverished families - out of
possibly get worse, your teenage daughter
the same office located at Harding Learning
tells you she’s pregnant.
Center, an alternative high school where 70
For those who grew up in poverty, going
percent of the student body is considered
through the motions of a simulation such as
homeless.
this can be triggering, said Steve Roe. He
It’s also where the ARK Program offers a
owns and manages a car dealership in
food
pantry, free clothing closet with most
Grants Pass and conducts these simulations
child and teen sizes, hygiene items and
across Oregon, free of charge. He said it’s
other essentials that have been collected as
important for people who, like himself, have
donations and are provided to struggling
never lived in severe poverty, to have the
families
with kids enrolled in the district
powerful experience the simulation affords.
Torres said the majority of her homeless
It was after going through one himself
students are either couch surfing or doubled
two years ago at a Ford Family Foundation
up in a relative or friend’s home after their
retreat in Bend that Roe decided he wanted
family lost their own. She said many
to become a facilitator.
students falling into the homeless category
He flew to St. Louis, Mo., for a two-day
are living in substandard housing, such as a
training and bought a $2,150 kit from the
camper or RV, and others are living in
Missouri Association for Community Action.
Since then, he has taken groups, typically of motels.
Thankfully, she said, she doesn’t currently
100 or more, through the simulation in
have any families camping in tents, but that
various towns across Oregon, paying for his
situation typically arises in the summer.
own travel, room and board along the way.
“I remember one family had a 4-year-old
and a 1-year-old, and I’m just calling
everywhere, because I am like you have to
A district in poverty
be somewhere before winter comes. I
cannot handle you being in that tent with
When Lisa DeSalvio, a program director
those babies,” she said. “And that’s what
at Coos Bay School District, experienced a
really kills me.”
poverty simulation at The Mill Casino in
North Bend, it immediately struck her as
Until Coos Cares’ Harmony House
something that would be beneficial to
opened in December, there was no
educators working in her d istrict
homeless shelter for families in the entire
In last week’s edition of Street Roots, we
county. However, Harmony House only has
reported on how generational poverty
space for two families and is running a wait
following an economic collapse in the 1980s
list
There’s also no shelter for unaccom
has fed an increasingly severe housing crisis
panied youths in Coos County - or
in Coos County.
anywhere else along the coast
Up and down the Oregon C oast each
Part II Coos County
A R K P R O G R A M M A N A G E R A N D H O M E LE S S L IA IS O N
FO R THE C O O S B A Y S C H O O L D ISTR IC T
SE N IO R STAFF REPORTER
I
■ W r -
ER*"1
ILLUSTRATION BY ENRIQUE RAM O S LOPEZ/ISTOCK
In Lincoln County, where 1 in 8 students
are homeless, the school district typically
has one or two students who are bused to
school from the nearest homeless youth
shelters, in Salem and Corvallis - at least an
hour each way. If the kids can’t find people
who will house them locally, it’s the only
way to prevent them from falling behind
academically, explained Katey Townsend,
the homeless liaison for Lincoln County
School District.
During the 2016-17 school year, 215
homeless students in Lincoln County School
District were unsheltered - finding refuge
in campers, tents, bams and storage units,
said Townsend. That same year, 84 stayed
in shelters and motels, and nearly 500 found
shelter in the homes of family or friends.
Townsend said the numbers are up from
when she moved back to Newport to work
for the school district in 2010. Back then,
there were about 400 homeless youths
across the entire county. Two years ago, the
number peaked at close to 1,000. While the
increase may be partially due to better
tracking, she said, “the problem has
definitely gotten worse.”
With no youth shelters, homeless youths
living on Oregon’s coast can often find
themselves in less-than-ideal living
situations, such as staying with a coworker
they recently m et at a new job or with a
relative who has a substance abuse issues.
“I remember some of them last year,
About this series
This article is part of Street
Roots’ Housing Rural Oregon
series. This segment of the
series examines housing and
homeless issues along
Oregon’s coast. Read
previous articles
from the series at
news.streetroots.org.
were staying with random people, and there
was nothing I could do about it besides give
I them a tent,” Torres said.
Barbara Green, education assistant at the
Coos Bay School District’s ARK Program,
added, “It happened this year for a couple
kids. They just moved here and don’t have
anywhere to stay, so they ask their
classmates, ‘Hey, can I stay with you, would
your parents be OK with it?’”
In the two years she has been with the
district, Torres said unaccompanied
teenagers have made up a large part of her
caseload. She said in some cases, they
moved to the coast with a significant other
who has family in the area, and then a break
up leaves them homeless. Many are simply
at odds with their family.
Green said families and youth are often
drawn to Coos Bay because they have “an
awesome childhood memory’ of the place
and decided to move there without a solid
plan for housing or work.
“That is always a major one,” said Torres,
“for why families move here. Or they were
promised a job. And then that didn’t go
through. We hear that all the time.”
Erin Skaar, director of Community Action
Resource Enterprises in Tillamook County,
said she can name three families in her area
who have a teenager who is not their own
living with them right now.
“I think that this goes back to that we
have a friendly, small community, where we
have a lot of amazingly wonderful, loving
households that will allow those youths to
stay for a window of time,” Skaar said.
For homeless students, accessing the
internet or finding a quiet place to do
homework can be barriers to succeeding in
school. Objectives like finding shelter and
acquiring money can become priorities,
while schodlwork and grades fall to the
wayside.
It can be tough on teachers, too. In both
Lincoln County and Coos Bay school
districts, it’s likely a teacher will have
multiple homeless students in his or her
classroom.
“Sometimes, it’s probably hard when
juggling 30 students, and maybe one of the
homeless students is sleeping that morning,
in their class,” said Townsend. “That can be
frustrating, but I think when a teacher
learns the underlying issue of what’s going
on - they didn’t have stable housing or they
stayed up half the night because they were
in a tent and it was raining outside, they
really switch into figuring out how to
support the student”
Teachers can point their students to their
school’s homeless liaison and other
resources for students who are struggling
with housing or food insecurity.
In Coos Bay, thé ARK program offers a
computer lab, along with transportation
See POVERTY, page 12
PHOTOS BY EMILY GREEN
M elinda Torres (above) goes through
supplies a t Coos Bay A K K Program,
which provides clothing, food and
other supplies to housing insecure
fam ilies with children in the Coos Bay
School District. In Coos County, 30
percent o f children live in poverty and
nearly h a lf qualify fo r free or reduced
lunch, according Children First fo r
Oregon’s 2017 County Data Book.
Hygiene kits (at right) fu n d ed by the
Cow Creek Umpqua Indian
Foundation, are ready fo r students.
This past winter, Torres said her
program distributed 120 suck kits.