Recently my friends at Just Children, a legal advocacy group for children in Virginia, reported that the National Center on Family Homelessness, ranked Virginia 25 overall among states on their child homelessness scale (calculating extent of child homelessness, child well-being, risk of child homelessness, and state policy and planning). Virginia’s “state policy and planning" is labeled "inadequate." The study analyzed data from 2005-06, so the numbers did not include any increase in child homelessness caused by the current economic crisis. In this area, problems of three years ago can only be worse now given the housing foreclosure crises and increased number of parents facing unemployment.
VIrginia law requires local school districts to enroll homeless children in school. The definition of homeless children is broadly defined in Virginia Code Section 22.1-3. This law applies to children who may not be in the physical custody of their parents and includes children “who (a) are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or other causes; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations or in emergency, congregate, temporary, or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement; (b) are living in an institution that provides a temporary residence for the mentally ill or individuals intended to be institutionalized; (c) have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings; or (d) are living in parked cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings”.
Child advocates will likely see more homeless children during the current economic crisis. The legal framework is there to make sure they have access to school without long administrative delay or confusion. Let’s use the tools.
