BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ricardo, a kindergartner, rifles through the small box of supplies on the table in front of him. Past the pencils, past the notebook, directly to the toothbrush.
He runs his fingers across the bristles, then hands it to his after-school tutor with an odd request.
Put my name on my toothbrush.
Loni Sander, his tutor, begins printing without a second thought. She has been at her job long enough to understand that nights can get a little crazy at a shelter. Toothbrushes can get mixed up. Someone else can start hoarding your stuff.
When you're little and homeless, it's important to know what things are yours. And to hold onto every reminder of who you are.
A saving grace
For homeless kids like Ricardo, adults who understand the importance of names on toothbrushes are a single, saving grace. For three years, a federally funded program called Project Connect has placed tutors like Loni Sanders in area shelters, and provided an information center and advocacy program for more than 3,000 local homeless children.
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FOR INFO
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For more information on federal legislation on homeless children, call Barbara Duffield at the National Coalition for the Homeless, 202-737-6444, ext. 312.
For information on Project Connect, call 357-5720.
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This fall, as in years past, federal legislators are debating funding for the McKinney Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program, which pays for Project Connect and programs for homeless children throughout the nation.
One Senate bill puts a lid on funding, despite the fact homeless children are growing in needs and in number. A House bill would pool education funds, eliminating the McKinney Act altogether.
Politically, homeless children are a relatively safe population to underfund. They are young, poor, quiet, mobile and largely invisible. They don't look much different from other children. And they are exceptionally good at keeping their problems to themselves.
Yet no group of children needs sustained, organized academic help more.
Tracking children
Homeless children typically change schools six times each year, entering and leaving abruptly. Eviction, domestic abuse, major illness, loss of a job can trigger a sudden family move, lurching children not only into emotional crisis, but pressure to keep their situation secret.
Because nobody boasts about being homeless.
Often, the children show up at school without records, supplies or explanations. Nothing follows smoothly -- not transportation, not lunch programs and certainly not the enriched educational services so many homeless children need.
So Project Connect steps in. It issues bus tokens so that kids living temporarily at a shelter, motel or campground can still make it to school. It makes sure parents know homeless children have a legal right to continue at their original school. And it makes sure schools understand enough about a child's situation to help meet his urgent needs.
In an important improvement, Project Connect tracks kids, making sure tutoring and other educational support continue, even as they move from shelter to shelter.
There are all sorts of things homeless kids need. Their old neighborhood back. The puppy they had to leave behind. Dad to stop beating up Mom. A place to bring friends after school. A choice of what to eat for dinner.
Not to mention a home.
Project Connect can't provide them all. But it can make sure school doors stay open for them, their old teacher still welcomes them and buses still stop for them.
And it can make sure someone notices when they arrive, and misses them when they leave.
And that someone knows what color their eyes are, and when their birthday comes around, and even what name to write on a toothbrush. Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at the Enquirer, 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202.
RAMSEY ARCHIVE