In a recent state report card, 3.9% of students in Oregon are experiencing homelessness. There are a number of challenges facing these students, including meeting their basic needs. According to the report card, a little more than 80% of Oregon students graduate in four years, for students who are unhoused that number drops down to 58.6%.
Mark Osburn is the McKinney-Vento liaison for the Oakridge School District as well as their Youth and Transition Coordinator. Jamie Klebe is the McKinney-Vento liaison for Warrenton-Hammond School District and a counselor at Warrenton High School. Both of their districts have some of the highest percentage of their students experiencing homelessness in the state. They join us now to discuss what youth homelessness looks like in their communities and how their districts tackle the issue.
Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyel studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The latest statewide K-12 report card found that one out of every 25 students in Oregon was experiencing homelessness last year. They were sleeping on couches or in motels, in shelters or on the street. About 4,000 more Oregon kids were homeless last year than the year before. We’re gonna hear now from people who are working to help these students in two of the districts with the highest rates of homelessness in Oregon. Mark Osburn is at the Oak Ridge School District. Jaime Klebe is at the Warrenton-Hammond School District. They both join us now. Welcome to Think Out Loud.
Mark Osburn: Thank you for having us.
Jaime Klebe: Thank you.
Miller: Jaime first. What are the latest numbers that you’re seeing in Warrenton?
Klebe: We’re currently seeing about 17%, which is fairly similar to our rates from last year.
Miller: What does that mean, just in terms of raw numbers?
Klebe: We have probably close to 167 is the latest count. Of students in our district, it’s about, I would say, 950. These are kind of estimates. I don’t know the exact number, but there are 950 students in the district. One challenge we have though is we may be a little undercounting. It’s difficult to identify all of the preschoolers. So that’s what we’re working on strengthening that right now.
Miller: I do want to hear more about identifying students in general. I imagine that there’s an art to that and that it’s tricky. But Mark, what about you? What are you seeing in the Oak Ridge School District, just in terms of the number of students that you’re trying to help?
Osburn: We have approximately 110 students who we’ve identified as being homeless. And in a District of about 500 people, it’s roughly 20%. I think within the past year we’ve gotten better at identifying and actually making these connections and building the relationships and being able to identify more students who are struggling right now.
Miller: It’s a staggering percentage though, close to 20%. My understanding is that you saw a jump in terms of that percentage of students who are identified as being homeless from two years ago to last year, 13% or so to about 20%, as you just noted. How much of that do you think is an increase in actual homelessness as opposed to improvements in finding and identifying these students?
Osburn: I think it’s about 50/50, to be honest. I think we have gotten definitely better about identifying and finding students who do meet the McKinney-Vento requirements and everything. But with the price of housing and everything increasing the way it has, we’re seeing multiple families living in the same or one housing unit.
Miller: You mentioned McKinney-Vento. I didn’t say this earlier, but technically, you both have the same title. Among other titles, you’re the McKinney-Vento liaisons for your school district. Jamie, what does that mean?
Klebe: Really, it means that we are the responsible ‒ well, not the only responsible person ‒ but the one in the district that should educate the rest of the district and what McKinney-Vento is. The McKinney-Vento Act is really something that came about in the 80s to ensure educational rights and protections of any children or youth experiencing homelessness. And one of the things that it does is to allow students with these instabilities to remain in their home school if they so choose.
Miller: How do you, in the Warrenton-Hammond School District, find these kids? How do you know that they are homeless and need your help?
Klebe: Really building relationships is the biggest thing. From the secretaries to the bus drivers to every teacher and person in the district, just knowing the kids and having trust built so that we can hear what’s going on in the homes, not only with the students but with the filies and the parents. Really, that’s the biggest thing. I get people emailing me like, “Hey, did you hear what’s going on with this family?” Just also allowing that homelessness just isn’t sleeping in a tent. We have many families that are doubled up, tripled up. We have people living in situations that are above a business or that aren’t really designated to be a home. So it can look very different than just… I mean, we do have students that are in cars in that type of situation, but it can be different than that.
Miller: Mark, what about in your district, the Oak Ridge School District? What is your process for finding kids?
Osburn: Like Jaime said, a lot of it just comes from other staff members, people who built these relationships. Going out, actually I meet with students to go over grades once a week. Just listening, asking the right questions. We actually, the past couple of years, have started making students fill out the whole registration packet every time at the beginning of the year. And we put a small questionnaire in there that regards their living situation. The number of people living in the house, that’s really helped us identify more students.
Miller: You said that asking the right questions is key. I imagine it’s not just on a questionnaire. What do you find has been most helpful for you when you’re talking with kids, to best understand what they’re experiencing?
Osburn: It just comes down to building that relationship. A lot of them aren’t gonna just come out and say, “Hey, I’m homeless. Mom and dad kicked me out. I’ve been living here.” So it’s maybe asking them about their shoes or if I can help with what’s going on here, and just building that relationship, giving them somebody who they can come to who they feel they trust. They can come with these issues and everything, and yeah, it’s just the relationships.
Miller: Jaime, what have you found to be the factors that are most driving homelessness on the North Coast right now?
Klebe: Definitely the lack of affordable housing. I mean, I know that it’s all over the place. Just even in the years that I’ve been in the district, I’ve seen the logging and fishing industries on the North Coast changing to more of a tourism-based economy. And we have a lot of families here that are struggling with that change. Also in Warrenton we have a lot of big box stores, Costco, Walmart, those types of things. We have a lot of families where people work there and just cannot afford to make it here. We do have a lot of campgrounds, so a lot of our students are in camping type situations, living in RV’s, in very close proximity with the whole family in one smaller living space. So that’s definitely a challenge for kids with privacy even and just tensions in the family.
Miller: Mark, I imagine that the issue of a major decrease over the last few decades in resource extraction jobs, that is the same in Oak Ridge as we are hearing from Jaime in Warrenton. But tourism, I would assume, plays a smaller role. What are you seeing broadly in terms of economic drivers there for homelessness?
Osburn: Yeah, as soon as the logging mills shut down here in Oak Ridge, there really is no industry. The city’s made a push to bring in tourism, but Oak Ridge itself is just kind of a pass through. I mean, we have had a push to build mountain biking trails and going that way, but there is no work here. The school district, I know, is probably the biggest employer. Behind that I want to say there’s maybe 15 people work at a fish hatchery and probably 15 people who work at the forestry building. But there is no industry, there are no jobs. And the people who do have those jobs don’t leave them.
Miller: So Jaime, what kinds of services or help are you able to offer to these, you said, about 167 kids right now in your district?
Klebe: We’ve been really working hard to connect families with organizations in the community that are helping out. We do everything through the school. We do food, we’ve been helping with families with deposits and first month’s rent, if they can find something. It’s anything from helping with phone bills, to shoes, to just kind of breaking down some of the barriers for kids to access extracurriculars, no matter if that’s music or sports. We know that when kids are connected to those things it just increases their achievement and we really work hard to do that. Just get kids involved. Like we were both saying earlier, relationship, relationship, relationship is it. In any way that the kids might need help, whether that’s just some cozy blankets or stuffed animals to make their space feel more like home. It’s a variety.
Miller: Mark, what about you? What do you find that you’re providing often that really makes a difference?
Osburn: You know, often it’s just taking care of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and providing food, providing clothing. Since I’ve started here, we’ve joined with Food for Lane County. We have a school-based food pantry where not just the McKinney-Vento or homeless kids go, but anybody who’s hungry could go in and grab some food, bring something home to cook that night. I have a giant clothing closet. That’s just been going to businesses and asking for donations. So a lot of our clothes in our clothing closet are brand new. So it’s just not going in and taking people’s hand-me-downs. They could get a new pair of shoes, a new pair of socks.
Just on the day-to-day basis, it’s taking care of general needs and things that come up. I know with the extracurriculars and everything that Jaime mentioned, we’ll pay for sports fees, if a kid needs a baseball glove, a new pair of cleats to keep them involved in the school, giving them a reason to come back. We pay for their meals when they’re on sports trips. It’s just basically giving them an equitable education.
Miller: A lot of what you’re both talking about there, as you noted, Mark, are just the basic hierarchy of human needs ‒ of safety, of food and water and shelter. But past that, you’re both talking, it seems, about ways to keep kids engaged. How big of a connection do you see between student homelessness and absenteeism?
Osburn: It’s huge. I’m in charge of the attendance around here too and when they don’t feel well, they are sick more often, just trying to take away those barriers, picking kids up from school, getting them alarm clocks, making sure they have everything to feel well and get here. I would probably say that our McKinney-Vento population misses probably at least twice as much school as the students who are not.
Miller: Jaime, do you see something similar in Warrenton-Hammond?
Klebe: We do. And similar to what Mark’s saying, I think we just work really hard to make school a place that they want to come, is the biggest thing. And our teachers work really hard, all of our staff members just work really hard to make everybody feel welcomed and that they have a reason to get up in the morning and get to school.
Miller: What did pandemic-era funding mean to you? I’m curious for both of you. But Jaime first. I mean, this was a time of unprecedented federal spending that went to all kinds of different organizations and schools and governments. Did that also mean an increase in what you were able to do?
Klebe: Oh, yes, yes. One of the reasons that we could, as I had mentioned previously, one of the reasons we could help with phone bills and security deposits and all of those types of things were due to the funding that was coming from the federal government. That’s coming to an end though and so we’re not going to be able to do as much as we were previously. And there is some state funding coming through to Clatsop County because of this issue. So we have seen an increase in some shelters and transitional housing and in various programs being funded. So there’s hope there, but the school will have less funding coming in.
Miller: Mark, will you also have a drop in funding and a decrease in what you’re able to do because of the end of these federal pandemic relief funds?
Osburn: Definitely. Yeah, and I know, we were able to get several ESEA grants that are sunsetting, I believe, next September. We tried to go a bigger route and, with the federal funding we received, make programs and things that are going to be sustainable, like the food pantry, the clothing closet, and everything. But with the funding coming to an end, it is gonna be a lot more difficult to get those sorts of things.
Miller: I’m curious. We have, by necessity, focused a lot on the challenges that your students are facing and the challenges that you’re facing in helping them. But I want to turn to the positives that you’ve seen. I mean, Jaime, what kind of resilience do you see in the kids you’re working with?
Klebe: Oh, wow. I mean, that’s I think what keeps us going, is that high level of resilience with kids? I mean, I think about students who have since moved on and, in particular, that may be at university that had been kind of just lacking hope. And then just building relationships and getting that school community around them and seeing kids succeed is huge. They’re so resilient. It’s kind of unbelievable actually.
Miller: Mark, what about you? What do you see?
Osburn: You see so much every day. Last year, the valedictorian was a student who definitely everybody worked with quite a bit, [who earned] a full ride scholarship to college. It’s just seeing these kids who haven’t gotten the best break, didn’t get the best hand dealt to them. And just, like I said, building those relationships, giving them a goal, letting them see the bigger picture, getting out there. And when you actually see one of these students succeed and move forward and break that generational poverty, it means something.
Miller: Mark Osburn and Jaime Klebe, thanks very much.
Osburn: Thank you.
Klebe: Thank you.
Miller: Mark Osburn is the youth and transition coordinator for the Oakridge School District where he is also the McKinney-Vento liaison. Jamie Klebe has that same job at the Warrenton-Hammond School District. She is also a counselor at the high school.
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