Sequim’s most vulnerable

The struggles homeless youth and young adults face daily in Sequim are nearly invisible to many, but are far from absent.

Within the Sequim School District, 101 students have self-identified as being homeless and even that triple digit number likely fails to capture all youth without a consistent home environment in Sequim, Jennifer Van De Wege said.

Since April, Sequim High biology teacher and activity coordinator Van De Wege also has become the school district’s McKinney–Vento liaison.

“It’s been eye-opening and there’s a big learning curve,” she said, reflecting on the mere months she’s been the district liaison.

Of the self-identified homeless students, about a dozen are unaccompanied and about 15 are kindergarten age.

“It’s the ‘littles’ that really make me sad because they’re not going to self-advocate,” she said.

McKinney-Vento

The McKinney-Vento Education of Homeless Children and Youth Assistance Act is a federal law that “ensures immediate enrollment and educational stability for homeless children and youth,” according to the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. The act enables federal funding to states to help support school district programs that serve homeless youth, like the Sequim School District.

Under the act, each school district is responsible for designating a homeless liaison to identify students needing served, provide public notice to homeless families and facilitate access, like transportation, to school. Districts also are required to track homeless students and annually report their data to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“The federal regulations are very basic and nearly wholly unfunded,” Van De Wege said.

Although benefits exist as a smaller school district like Sequim, Van De Wege admits the size of the district poses difficulties, such as the time allotted time to coordinate and serve homeless students.

“In a small district, it’s a sliver of your job description,” whereas in larger districts there may be multiple employees focusing on homeless or at risk students, she said.

“I’m supposed to be spending significantly less than five hours a week on this, but when trying to coordinate resources for more than 100 students, it’s difficult,” Van De Wege said.

Trying to best serve and connect with the all the homeless students within the school system, Van De Wege is spreading the responsibility beyond only her and onto the schools’ counselors.

“Counselors in each building are now points of contact and are able to connect with the students, help monitor them, look up their attendance records and grades,” she said. “This is just one more type of positive adult intervention.”

An inside look

For one homeless Sequim High student having an attentive, available school counselor is making a big difference during her last year of school, but Jaimee still is limited in what she can do and where she can go as a full-time student with no car and little in the way of a safety net.

“If I had somewhere to go, I’d leave,” Jaimee said.

Jaimee is a senior at Sequim High School and stays with her boyfriend after previous living situations with family and later a best friend fell through. Although the year Jaimee lived with her best friend proved the most stable, she was left with little housing options after her friend moved out of the state, she said.

Before moving in with her friend, Jaimee’s family had lost their home and thus moved in with her grandmother — sharing a small two-bedroom home. Given the limited space, Jaimee slept on the couch.

“I felt like there just wasn’t any room for me,” she said. “I hated that couch.”

Her family later moved into a house of their own, but again lost it. Between the inconsistent housing and disagreements with her parents, Jaimee moved out just two weeks after her 18th birthday.

“I have places I can stay but it’s easier when you have one place you know will be there,” she said. “I know a lot of people are in a far worse situation than me, so I just want to help.”

Things are off and on between Jaimee and her boyfriend, which leaves her on edge whenever they disagree because he’s able to kick her out and has done so before, she explained. If she could leave him, she would, she said, but after looking into affordable housing options in Sequim, she has yet to find an alternative.

Jaimee works, but with school she’s not able to work enough to pay rent and still have money for daily expenses, like food.

“If we (Sequim) had a temporary housing shelter, I think I’d try to live there until I graduate and can work more and find a place,” she said.

Homeless defined

Students like Jaimee, juggling school, work and inconsistent relationships and/or living with grandparents because their family is in a financial crisis, equate to about 80 percent of the homeless youth within Sequim schools, Van De Wege estimates.

Based on the past three years of records the number of homeless youth enrolled in Sequim schools remains consistent, at about 100 students. Van De Wege notes, most of the names are new from year to year, indicating the transient lifestyle of many of the students.

From last year, only about 25 percent of the students no longer listed as homeless or in a crisis situation still are enrolled in the school, Van De Wege said.

“I don’t see the number changing (number of homeless students), but I would like to see that 25 percent be more like 75 percent,” she said. “The problem is just too massive to address all the needs, but keeping the school a safe, stable space and continuing to help them achieve academic success is about the best we can do.”

The concept of being “homeless” can be misleading, Van De Wege explained, as it doesn’t only refer to those unsheltered, but it could include youth and young adults couch surfing or staying in temporary housing situations.

“We’re seeing more situations where parents are leaving children with grandparents and leaving,” she said.

Depending on the organization, federal or state perspective, the definition of homeless can change.

Disconnected resources

Having personal insight into the available resources in Sequim as both a youth and young adult with limited transportation, Jaimee feels having a “safe place to stay” for those that need it and 24-hour access to little things like bus passes would help, she said.

“We have a lot of resources to help these youth and young adults, but almost all are in Port Angeles,” Van De Wege said.

The Serenity House of Clallam County operates a housing resource center in Sequim, but it’s limited by its business hours.

“There’s a need in Sequim,” Martha Ireland, Serenity House executive coordinator, said. “The St. Vincent de Paul Society associated with St. Joseph’s Catholic Church is the only place in Sequim that answers the phone in the evening and weekends.”

Longterm solutions to reduce homelessness typically focus on making available affordable and permanent housing, but Mike Flynn, president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, also recognizes the importance of temporary housing options for those genuinely needing emergency shelter — like situations where someone is fleeing from domestic abuse.

“We have an urgent and important need for emergency housing and services in

Sequim,” he said. “We probably get one to two calls per week and we’re happy to respond, but having a dedicated family emergency service in this community is essential.”

At-risk and/or homeless youth are some of the most vulnerable and susceptible to victimization, yet no emergency shelter for youth exists in Clallam County, Kim Leach, Serenity House of Clallam County executive director, said.

“I think it’s one of the biggest deficits the county has,” she said.

Serenity House officials used to run a youth-focused emergency center, but faced the challenges of a rural community where the numbers aren’t enough to support a timely and expensive operation like that, Leach explained.

“We’re very interested in identifying what we can bring to this size of community to better serve at-risk youth that’s also economically viable,” she said. “We’re looking into a variety of services.”

For example, Leach and Viola Ware, Serenity House program director of Housing Resource Centers and Youth and Young Adult services, are working to fund a youth and young adult rental assistance program. Serenity House officials continue to run their Dream Center in Port Angeles, a drop-in center for homeless and at risk youth ages 13-23, but that too has experienced reduction in programs because of funding and space limitations.

Proactive measures under way

Despite the difficulties faced when trying to reduce youth and young adult homelessness, the efforts are ongoing to better serve young, displaced individuals like Jaimee.

Within the past year Serenity House officials increased their outreach and time at the resource centers, are collaborating with local law enforcement, revamping their “Ready to Rent” curriculum and continue to focus heavily on education and employment skills to foster self-sufficiency.

“We need more volunteers,” Ware said. “The more people youth can connect with when they come into the resource centers, the better.”

In hopes of increasing public awareness, understanding of the McKinney-Vento Act and coordination between family services and the schools, Serenity House officials are working to coordinate a public McKinney-Vento training in May.

Additionally, Serenity House officials seek to narrow and deepen their focus with a countywide survey. Because the younger homeless or at-risk demographic tend to be “mobile,” Ware said, the assessment is aimed at gathering more specifics about the demographics’ needs, common risks and obstacles to services.

“Most of our data comes from people that are coming through our doors, but one of my concerns is what about everyone else?” she said. “The assessment will help us move in the right direction and augment the HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) data.”

“We’ve done different needs assessments, but the difference with this one is hopefully it will be more global in its scope,” Ware said. “The assessment will complement the outreach we’re already doing and help us get to more of that target demographic.”

The assessment is developed, but Serenity House officials are coordinating the launch of the assessment with organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, churches and schools.

“We plan to roll it out in the next couple of weeks,” Leach said.

Creating a space

Leach and Ware also are interested in creating a safe home or opening a place like the Boiler Room in Port Townsend — a nonprofit coffee and tea house and social services hub with resources, education, activities and socialization opportunities for many youth and young adults.

“A project like the Boiler Room was in our initial plan,” Ware said. “We even have the building (located in Port Angeles) for us to do it, but we don’t have the funding and staffing capacity right now.”

A similar, but grass roots effort was started last year by a handful of concerned citizens and community organization officials to bring The Coffee Oasis to Sequim. The Coffee Oasis is an established faith-based, nonprofit organization aimed at providing community gathering places and is supported by serving self-roasted coffee from direct-trade coffee beans. The organization has multiple locations in Kitsap County where Sequim resident Cecilia Eckerson first became familiar with the nonprofit. However, after a few months of meeting in Sequim with few results, the local effort took a turn in a different direction, but hasn’t gone away, Eckerson said.

In collaboration with another concerned Sequim citizen, Gail Lucas, Eckerson is continuing to work toward developing a place devoted to youth and young adults in Sequim.

“Coffee Oasis is a good model for Kitsap County, but I just think Sequim is a different animal and we need something that fits this community,” she said. “What we would like to do is rent an apartment or house and start a drop-in center.”

Although the Boys & Girls Club in Sequim provides a safe place for youth, it too has limitations.

“There’s the Boys & Girls Club, but when you get to a certain maturity level it’s just different,” Jaimee said. “It’s kind of a weird place to be when you’re 19 and older.”

Ellen Bartee, a local resident involved in both the Clallam County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program and the effort to implement a Coffee Oasis in Sequim, echoes Jaimee and recognizes a local need for a place that focuses and serves older youth and young adults.

“The Boys & Girls Club is an excellent club that is making a huge impact on younger children,” she said. “But, I think particularly urgent are the needs surrounding 16-24 year olds who may be aging out of foster care, struggling with various addictions and victims of abuse.”

The concentration of social services in Port Angeles for at-risk or homeless teens and young families, Bartee said, continues to leave a “glaring gap” in Sequim.