Spokane Public Schools sees uptick in homeless students as district launches annual gift card drive

Spokane Public Schools is dealing with a surge of homeless students that mirrors what is happening on the streets of downtown Spokane.

The district this year saw a 28% increase in students without permanent housing, according to point -in -time counts. Last November, schools identified 936 kids lacking a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.” This November, that figure has ballooned to 1,222 students who may be living on the streets or in their cars, RVs, hotels or motels, at a shelter or couch surfing without a consistent place to go after school lets out.

“This is a real picture of what’s happening,” said Sarah Miller, the school district’s liaison working with families and homeless students who need help ensuring that going to school is attainable. “It could be that people are more comfortable talking to us, but I think it’s just homelessness is increasing in our community.”

Throughout her 14 years in her role coordinating resources for students facing homelessness, she said it’s been awhile since there were this many kids in need.

“There’s ebbs and flows all the time,” Miller said. “The last time our numbers were this high was really during that housing crisis of 2008, 2009.”

Of the more than 1,200 kids dealing with homelessness, school staff give particular care to the 277 who do so without a parent or guardian. There are many different situations that can lead a kid to be on their own, Miller said, like economic instability or family separation.

Many of their students sleep in cars as they wait for room in shelters. Some stay in motel rooms, crowded with six family members cooking from a microwave, Miller said.

The common thread is an uncertainty over where a kid is going to sleep that night.

“A lot of our unaccompanied youth are doing what’s called couch surfing,” Miller said. “Staying with this friend for a few nights, pop over to an aunt’s house for a while, never really sure where they’re going at the end of the day and just having to plan that out day by day and make things happen for themselves.”

Schools use every angle to identify kids in need: teachers, counselors, bus drivers; sometimes, other students report a needy peer. Once they do, a homeless community specialist who works in school helps to eliminate barriers in getting them the assistance they need.

“If it’s related to school and it is creating a barrier for that student to fully participate, we’re trying to find a way,” Miller said. “Whether that’s our program that is eliminating that barrier, or if we have a partnership elsewhere.”

The federal Mckinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act mandates schools provide for their unhoused students in ways like arranging transportation to keep kids in the same school if they’re moving from place to place, but the district’s Homeless Education and Resource Team, HEART, takes it a step further, Miller said.

They buy and distribute essentials like school and hygiene supplies, as well as equipment like cleats and knee pads for kids to play their sport of choice. Through community partnerships, they give kids suits and ties for DECA competitions or instrument rentals to play in orchestra.

“We just want to scoop you up and support you in any way that we can,” Miller said.

One way schools and the community “scoop up” their homeless kids is through an annual gift-card drive, in which community members can donate gift cards to the district that disperses them to homeless students around the holidays, emphasizing first the 277 unaccompanied homeless kids, and then the others depending on need.

Last year, the district received over $26,000 in gift card donations that they gave to students in need.

“Some students need to go out and buy food and socks and whatever,” Miller said. “We have just as many unaccompanied youth who are using those gift cards to go and take their sibling out to McDonald’s and doing something that is special for somebody else.”

The district accepts any gift card or cash donation in the drive running from Tuesday to Dec. 10, though they take gift cards year round. There’s a need for donations to buy essentials from big box stores like Walmart or Target, but students also enjoy gift cards for entertainment or toys and personal items. Restaurant gift cards are also accepted so kids can meet their friends for fast food, for example.

To donate, drop off a gift card of any amount to any school’s front office or mail them to the downtown district office at 200 N. Bernard St., Spokane, WA., 99201, c/o Communications Dept.