NEWS/CLASSIFIEDS
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2017
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A11
THE BRINK OF HOMELESSNESS
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Letitia Kidder had planned to
retire with her husband, sell their
home and move out to the country.
But when he died five years ago,
Kidder found herself saddled with
expenses she couldn’t afford —
including her home.
The Hermiston house where she
has lived for a decade was fore-
closed on in June, giving Kidder six
months to either come up with the
funds or vacate.
“I have to be out at midnight on
Christmas,” she said.
While the 2017 count by the
state of Oregon found 55 homeless
people in Umatilla County, many
more like Kidder are on the brink
of homelessness.
Kidder is a veteran, as was her
husband. He died of a heart attack
in December 2012, in the middle of
fighting for VA benefits.
“He was in pain from an ankle
injury he received while he was in
the service,” she said.
With three sons in their teens
when her husband, Charles, died,
Kidder said her first priority was
getting her boys through school.
But as she waited to file for wid-
ow’s benefits, she said she was
informed that the last stage of the
application could take between two
and 10 years to process.
When her husband died, Kidder
was unemployed. She found a job
shortly after, but was struggling to
pay bills. Eventually, she was hired
at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, where she
is still working.
“I have a good job,” she said,
but it wasn’t enough to keep up
with mortgage payments.
Kidder said she has a place to
go temporarily, and she is trying
to save up enough money to buy a
fifth-wheel trailer. Finding another
place to live is more challenging
because she owns dogs, goats and
a horse.
STAFF PHOTOS BY E.J. HARRIS
Marine Corps veteran Letitia Kidder may lose her Hermiston home of ten years to foreclosure by the end of the month.
“My animals are my saving
grace,” she said. “And yeah, to
move out of my house, I first have
to find a place that will take two big
dogs.”
She has found a farm in Power
City to keep the horse and goats.
She has a trailer in mind, one
that belongs to the nephew of her
friend. The trailer costs around
$8,000, which Kidder said will take
her a while to save up.
“I have a paycheck today, and
I’ve got to go buy animal food,”
she said. “Then in two weeks I get
another paycheck, and that’s my
plane ticket to go see my son grad-
uate from boot camp.”
Need help
Unforeseen circumstances have
displaced other locals, too, many of
whom take to the Walmart parking
Letitia Kidder
stands in the
living room of
her home with
her dog, Rock,
a nine-year-
old boxer, on
Thursday in
Hermiston.
lot in Hermiston to ask for help.
On a freezing Monday after-
noon, an elderly woman sat in a
wheelchair and a young man stood
a few feet away holding a sign.
Christopher Stade, formerly of
Kennewick, said someone set fire
to his house in September, while he
and his girlfriend were still inside.
They escaped but lost most of their
belongings. Since then, they have
been driving around the region,
trying to collect enough money to
keep the car running at night while
saving for a temporary place to
live.
“We don’t have family that can
help us, so we’ve been traveling
wherever we can find help,” he
said. “We’re about $100 short of
getting an RV.”
Stade said he had a job at a mov-
ing company in Kennewick before
the fire, but he decided to leave
everything behind to get away from
the relatives of the person who
burned their house down.
Standing nearby, a 67-year-old
woman who asked to be identified
only as “Nana” sat in a wheelchair.
“I feel ashamed,” she said
through tears as late afternoon tem-
peratures dipped into the low 30s.
Nana, a longtime Hermiston res-
ident, has been homeless for sev-
eral months, but she said it wasn’t
always her situation.
In the fall of 2016, when she
was living in low-income housing,
Nana fell ill and had to be admitted
to Kadlec Regional Medical Center
in Richland.
According to her friend Susan
Dickens, while she was in the hos-
pital her landlords decided they
couldn’t hold her space and put her
belongings in storage, leaving her
without a home.
Nana said she was working with
the ConneXions program at Good
Shepherd, but they tried to place
her in a rest home in another city.
“They said it was the only
option I had because I can’t walk,”
she said. “Instead of just sending
me around here, they were going
to send me to Portland or Spokane
where I wouldn’t know anybody.”
She said ConneXions paid for
one week’s stay in a motel, but
since then she’d been funding it
with her own savings — which she
has now exhausted — and has now
been standing in front of Walmart
several days a week to earn enough
money to finance the next week’s
stay.
She said she usually gets
between $30 and $60 per day when
she stands outside but still feels
embarrassed by the stigma of being
homeless.
Homeless students face extra barriers to success
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
A typical student has many con-
cerns: getting good grades, making
friends and participating in extra-
curricular activities are just a few.
But for many students, they can
come second to a more basic need:
finding a place to live.
The state recently released num-
bers for homeless students in Ore-
gon. The state reached an all-time
high this year, with 3.9 percent of
public school students qualifying
as homeless.
Hermiston’s numbers were
below the state average, with 1.1
percent of students qualifying
as homeless under the McKin-
ney-Vento Act, the federal guide-
lines for student homelessness.
Pendleton also fell below the state
average, with 2.9 percent of stu-
dents qualifying.
Lisa Depew, Hermiston School
District’s homeless liaison, said 25
students in the district qualified as
homeless this year.
She said at the beginning of the
year, secretaries are usually able to
assess whether a student is in an
unstable living situation and can
then refer them to the counselor to
further determine their needs.
The district then works with
state and local agencies to pro-
vide certain services for students,
such as free lunches, transporta-
tion services, clothing and school
supplies. Even if a student doesn’t
qualify under the federal definition
of “homelessness,” in a small com-
munity they can often still receive
those services.
“Maybe it’s because we’re rural
and small, but we wrap around a
kid,” she said.
She added that they try to pro-
vide some other services at the sec-
ondary school level as well, such
as waivers for sports participation
fees or testing fees.
But she said there are certain
things on which the district can’t
spend money designated for home-
less students, including shelter.
“We don’t go there,” she said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a
shelter, and one area that is sorely
needed is affordable housing. Our
care coordinator will attempt to
assist with that.”
InterMountain Education Ser-
vice District Superintendent Mark
Mulvihill said the number of home-
less students is increasing because
institutions are getting better at
identifying them, rather than a rise
in overall youth homelessness.
Mulivihill said the IMESD
combines its money with Greater
Oregon Behavioral Health Inc.
and Umatilla County to provide its
Wellness Hubs programs. In addi-
tion to providing services like oral
health, nursing and mental health
to students in need, Mulvihill said
one of the most important parts of
the programs is the ability of care
coordinators to go visit homes.
While phone calls used to suf-
fice, Mulvihill said having a staff
member visit a student’s living sit-
uation gives educators a better way
of assessing homelessness and
what the student needs.
Stanfield Secondary School
counselor Kirsten Wright said that
while the district keeps informa-
tion about homeless students con-
fidential, teachers often have some
awareness that a student is in need,
and will try to help make things
easier.
“Grades are a huge concern,”
said Wright, who attended a train-
ing this week about homeless stu-
dents. “I think our teachers, even
if we don’t tell them (a student is
homeless), are really good at pro-
viding accommodations.”
But she added that it is a burden
for students in unstable living situ-
ations to prioritize classes.
“Sometimes they have younger
siblings and need to be caretak-
ers,” she said. “It takes away from
getting to be a student and getting
to participate in extracurricular
activities.”
Wright recalled a student who
graduated last year who was shar-
ing space with another family
because her own living situation
was unstable.
“She was still financially on her
own for a lot of it,” Wright said.
She added that the student
gave birth right before her senior
year, and still had a few classes to
complete.
“One accommodation we gave
was we shortened the day,” Wright
said. “It was to ease the burden of
not only homelessness, but need-
ing to work and provide for the
baby.”
Wright said the student com-
pleted her education successfully,
the first in her family to have a high
school diploma.
“She had to overcome a lot of
barriers to achieve that, so that was
huge,” she said.
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CLASSIFIED LINE AD
DEADLINES
184 Personals
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