‘They Want to Feel Like a Kid’

Pam Hosmer oversees San Diego Unified school programs for a wide range of children with unique needs, including foster children, children in hospitals, runaways and military kids. As schools and shelters alike brace for the budget crunch, we sat down to talk with her about homeless children.

What are some of the unique challenges for homeless students that the average person might not know about?

Not being able to stay in the same school. Every time a child moves schools, they lose weeks of instruction. Most kids just want to feel normal. For part of their day, they want to feel like a kid and they want to feel smart. They want to learn. They don’t want to worry about where the next meal is coming from, where they’re going to sleep that night.

Who are we talking about when we say homeless students? Who falls under that category?

School districts have an added definition of homeless. There are four different categories:

• Sheltered, which means living in a shelter.
• Unsheltered, which can be anything — living in your car or the back of your pickup or under a bridge — which unfortunately we find more than we should.
• And then there is something called hotel/motel. That doesn’t mean your local Hyatt. There are some downtown hotels that social services can give out vouchers for a few nights.
• Then there’s doubling up. A principal will call and say a student is staying with their friends’ parents, kind of rotating from couch to couch. They would be homeless if someone wasn’t letting them sleep on their couch or their floor.

And how do you usually locate homeless families?

Schools usually know better than anyone else. They work so closely with the families. Still, we know that parents are often embarrassed, especially the new homeless. They don’t know how to work the system for resources. And they don’t always go into the front office and say, “Hey, I’m living on the streets today.”

So we do a lot of training. We tell school employees what to look for, to ask some very gentle leading questions. Like if a child comes to school looking disheveled. Maybe you notice that they take part of their food home.

Then when you talk to a parent, you can say: “Do you realize that there are some resources now for children who meet these different categories of living arrangements? Are you living with a friend or relative? If so, tell me the circumstances. Because if I know, we can get your child resources.”

How large is the homeless population in San Diego Unified?

We’re up to 1,500 students. And we know that that’s low — that’s just how many are in the system.

Now that you can track homeless students, what are some of the things you’ve been able to observe that you couldn’t before?

It allows us to go to the schools that are most impacted. I was surprised by where some of the populations of families living in homelessness were. Zamorano (in Paradise Hills) was one — it’s been really impacted by the mortgage crisis and we’ve seen a jump there. We go there and bring backpacks and supplies and clothing.

The children move so much that they lose things or have to leave them behind. I once got a call from a principal who said, “I have a student who was in the shelter last night and all their clothes were stolen.” Another principal told me, “This boy stopped attending school … He doesn’t have any clothes and he’s embarrassed. His one pair of pants looks too bad.”

Kids are embarrassed to come to school if they don’t have deodorant, too, so we provide hygiene packs. Our goal is that whatever obstacles there are for a child to attend school, we remove those obstacles.

How is the downturn in the economy impacting your work, besides impacting the number of children you’re seeing?

One thing [the budget cutbacks] have made us do is reach outside our comfort zone and start working with other agencies. I go to them and say, “You know, the best people to prevent homelessness are schools. Because our teachers know.” Kids will say things like, “I have to move because my daddy lost his job.”

Where do you see the biggest gaps in the system right now — the places that you worry most about?

I worry the most about cases where families have gone somewhere else and just left their kids. Some kids run away. Some age out of foster care.

Youth between 16 and 20 are too old for some of the shelters that cater to families with younger kids. But they’re still teenagers. They’re not going to go to a shelter downtown where you have much older people who may have alcoholism and have been chronically homeless.

There are a few places that have been very good about working with them, but I worry. They have their life in front of them and it’s so hard living on the streets. They don’t like to hang out with the people who’ve been chronically homeless because it’s almost like seeing their future.

If people want to help, what’s the best way for them to do so?

Donations could be anything from a pair of socks to a laptop. We have a storage space here for clothing items. Underwear and socks are really needed. We also have a foundation where people can give money. If you want to help, call 619/725-7652 and ask for me.

These are great kids and if we can keep them in school, that is the key to their future. I grew up very differently than the way I live now. My life is a fairytale now. I grew up in rural Alabama and my dad was a coal miner who only finished third grade. Education was my way to change my life. That’s why I’m passionate about keeping these kids in school.

— Interview conducted and edited by EMILY ALPERT