PANAMA CITY — It’s Kimberly Peterson’s second time being homeless, and her two little boys are approaching school age.
“It’s hard being a parent, especially with small children, because they depend on me,” Peterson said, sobbing. “It’s a horrible feeling when you can’t provide for them the way you need to, the way you want to.”
Four-year-old Bryan and 3-year-old Daniel Peterson soon will enter early childhood education programs. If they remain homeless, they’ll join the district’s 818 students currently classified as homeless.
Living at an emergency shelter carries a stigma, but families who live in them get a level of security unavailable to those who live under the grace of other homeless living situations.
“If there is no emergency shelter available to a family, then some people stay in the car,” said Kay Daniels, a homeless liaison with the Hunger and Homeless Coalition and a social worker with Bay District Schools. “And the ones who have nothing, they end up doubled up.
“If Person A has housing, out of the goodness of their heart, they say to Person B, ‘You can come stay with me,’ ” Daniels said. But “Person B has no rights to that housing.
“There’s no guarantee; you can get kicked out at any minute,” she said.
Youth homelessness defines a number of situations — living at RV parks, in cars, at parks, on couches, at hotels and shelters, with friends or family.
At the Rescue Mission’s Bethel Village, the Petersons share all living quarters with a number of women and families. Peterson said she tries to keep the boys from being a nuisance to others, but “boys will be boys,” she said.
“This is not a perfect place for children; they can’t run free,” Peterson said. Although her cousin invited the boys to move in with her, the living situation would take away the only thing Peterson has been able to keep as a homeless woman.
“We probably would have been separated,” she said, crying. “This program keeps us together.”
Coping
According to a National Coalition for the Homeless report, while 87 percent of homeless youth nationwide are enrolled in school, only 77 percent attend school regularly.
And without a home, homeless students cannot benefit from all of the resources are available to children who have a stable place to live.
That rings true for Bay High student Taylor Love, an only child who had to tag alongside his mother for years until he decided a life with her wouldn’t be a good one.
His mom didn’t have a stable income or lifestyle, the 17-year-old student said. And, in turn, “I’ve never had a normal lifestyle.”
The thin, average-height young man appeared to be like other teens. He wore several multicolored wristbands displaying inappropriate captions, a toboggan covered his dark wavy shoulder-length hair and a stuffed book bag was strapped to his small frame.
His deep, blue-green eyes fixed on something seemingly behind the wall in the classroom as he revealed his struggle to one day live in a comfortable, stable situation.
Certain living situations stick out in his memory. People he trusted would tell him he had to move.
“My mom’s friend tried to take more authority than she had,” he recalled, regarding a time during his freshman year. And later, at a friend’s parents’ house, “They kicked me out because I was depressed a lot.”
Love, who now lives with his grandmother, has attended six different high schools across several counties. He’s naturally “good at math” he said, but he has no plans to go to college.
When he lands his first job, he plans to move out of his grandmother’s place and into his own. A life of having to depend on others makes him more determined to go it alone, he said.
Resources
School districts provide homeless students with the means to continue on an educational path, such as transportation, school uniforms and anything else tied to the academic side of student life.
“One of the huge issues with being homeless is changing schools,” Daniels said. “The law recognizes when you change schools; you leave that academic tie.”
Federal law allows for homeless students to remain in their school of origin, something important to homeless students who have to move to a number of places in search of stability.
And though homeless students are, by law, to be given the same amount of access to education as non-homeless students, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, the former are nine times more likely to repeat a grade, four times more likely to drop out and three times more likely to be placed in special education programs.
Area individuals conduct a number of outreach programs to help combat the symptoms of homelessness. Backpack programs, food and clothes drives are regularly held.
At Bay High School, students help their fellow homeless peers through a program called Street Lights, which provides them access to funds specifically for school activities.
Anchorage Children’s Home also has programs for homeless youth.
Peterson said had it not been for Bethel Village, she would have had to separate from her two little boys. The resources she’s gained at the shelter eventually will lead her to make a stable home for the boys as they enter pre-kindergarten.
“Now, they’re helping me to get day care so I can go to work,” she said, adding that the inability to afford day care is one of the reasons her family is homeless. “Sometime it can take awhile for families to get out of the shelter and get back on their feet, but the programs they have going on here now, it’s easier.”
Love said he hadn’t heard about Street Lights until a day before The News Herald interview. He said he doesn’t look for much help from other people. After graduation next year, he plans to travel with his rock band, Like Father Like Son.
Bay
-Elementary, 408
-Middle, 127
-High, 145
-Combination (academies, special needs, Haney Technical Institute), 138
Total, 818