Casey Blake

cblake@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE – Tiana Jackson didn't have to put her kids on the school bus in front of a homeless shelter when the fall semester started this year.

She, her partner Lavar, and her four children, ages 8 months to 8 years old, stayed in the WNC Rescue Ministries shelter downtown for nearly a year before they got out a couple of months ago, but it wasn't for the homecoming they envisioned.

They traded the metal bunk beds and windowless rooms downtown to sleep on pads on the floor of a friend's apartment, all six of them sharing two beds in a one-bedroom apartment occupied by another family of three.

Each night they lay down two sets of blankets and sheets on the hardwood floors, Tiana and Lavar sharing one set with baby Lavar and the three oldest, ages 3 to 8, sharing the other.

The family no longer qualifies as "homeless" under federal housing guidelines, because they are living "doubled up" in a residence fit for human habitation. The school system defines them as homeless, but the federal programs that might move them to the front of housing assistance lists do not.

Jackson's kids were among 750 school-age children identified as homeless last year in Buncombe County, and school officials say they expect to surpass last year's numbers easily.

In the first nine weeks of school this year, 215 students have been identified as homeless in Buncombe County Schools. An additional 113 have been identified in the Asheville City School system.

Among them are children sleeping in motels, living in campgrounds or in the woods with their families, several sleeping in cars and many living "doubled up" like Tiana's family, sleeping temporarily in the homes of friends or relatives.

A specific count of how many children were homeless this time last year was unavailable last week, though it is expected to be ahead of cases recorded this time a year ago, said Kate Perrotta, homeless coordinator for Asheville City Schools.

"We're already seeing significantly high numbers, higher than we did last year at this time," Perrotta said.

"We're seeing the same ongoing, marked barriers to housing, where there are just no good options for families," she said. "Not a lot is changing."

Families still in flux

In June, the Citizen-Times profiled two families in a series examining child homelessness, the number of which has more than doubled in Buncombe County since the height of the Great Recession.

One of the families, Shane Hopkins and his three children — Skylar, Luke and Logan, found housing before their story went to print through a private landlord who heard about their story and wanted to help.

They don't have much left over at the end of the month, Hopkins said, but they make rent on the disability payments he and his mother receive each month.

The second family — Tiana Jackson's — has still not found a home of their own, more than a year after falling into homelessness.

The family was evicted from their home in Weaverville more than a year ago after they fell behind in rent. Both parents worked fast-food jobs, and when the Recession hit, the hours they were given started to dwindle.

The family left the shelter this fall so Tiana could take on a second fast-food job. The shelter requires people staying there to be in by a certain hour, which limited the shifts she could take during the day. They couldn't get ahead with her only working until 4, even with Lavar working late nights at Pizza Hut.

She now works an early morning shift at McDonald's, starting as early as 4 a.m. many days, then heads straight over to KFC, where she stays on until 4 p.m.

For weeks the family stayed in motels, which ran at least $1,000 a month for even the cheapest places on the bus line.

"Between that and buying formula and helping out on rent, there's just not a lot left," Jackson said. "It's exhausting, and it just feels like we can't get anywhere ... I cry almost every day, but I try not to in front of the kids.

"You just want them to worry about school and having fun, and nothing else," she said. "I don't want them to worry about anything."

Jackson's daughters, Aaliyah and Zahmari, attended Buncombe County schools for most of their lives but are now in the Asheville City School district.

Christine Craft, the new homeless student liaison for the Buncombe County School system, said more of her families are living in motels than in most years. So far 25 in the district are living out of motels, usually moving every week.

"When you think about even the cheapest motels you can find, that's running at least $800 a month," Craft said. "That's just not sustainable, and even then they aren't qualifying for a lot of services because they are 'housed.'"

Some days the best thing Craft can do for her families is to recommend they sleep in their cars, in a campground, in a local shelter, or in one of the places where they will meet the standards set by federal housing regulations that mean they are "homeless enough" to be eligible for more than transportation to and from school.

It's not a practice she encourages, necessarily. But she and the parents she works with both know that sometimes sleeping in a car, an abandoned building or on the streets is what it takes to qualify for help.

She said the early numbers they've gathered that identify students as homeless indicate the system will meet — or likely surpass — the numbers they saw last year, which were the highest since the peak of the Great Recession.

"Unfortunately, I think at this rate we are well on track to outpace those numbers easily," Craft said. "And based on the number of children living in poverty, the number we actually identify is likely just a portion of the real number.

"We work hard to catch every child, but that is by no means all of them."

Tracking trends

Children are the only subpopulation of homeless people that has actually grown in recent years, and local and national agencies are working to shift their focus to meet the new and growing needs presented by this new frontier in homelessness.

One in five American children nationally is now living in poverty, giving the United States the highest child poverty rate of any developed nation except for Romania.

North Carolina has slowly climbed to the top of this national trend, consistently ranked as one of the 10 states with the highest populations of homeless children.

And that number may only be a fraction of those actually experiencing homelessness, Craft said.

According to guidelines from the Urban Institute, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, an estimated 10 percent of students in any given school who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch will experience homelessness.

In Buncombe, 54 percent, or 13,526 enrolled students were on free and reduced lunch last week, Craft said.

"Statistically, our homeless numbers should be more around 1,350 instead of the 556 we identified last school year," she said. "That is likely closer to the actual number."

Craft said several homeless children are sleeping in cars, a trend that will become more and more troublesome as temperatures drop.

Staying on top of trends in the number of homeless adults is a challenge, advocates say, and anecdotal reports like those given by local shelters are often the only data that track those populations within recent months.

Western Carolina Rescue Ministries director Michael Woods said last month that the shelter housed more women and children than men for the first time in its 33-year history. The shelter, which receives no government funding, is working on an expansion to accommodate more women and children, hopefully by the beginning of 2015. The organization is still about $100,000 shy on funding, Woods said, which may delay the project.

"We're seeing more and more new faces, and they aren't the populations we're used to seeing," Woods said. "Many are women. Many are mothers, fleeing bad situations. Many are also elderly."

"You just think, as a society, we have to do better than this," he said. "We've got to be better."

Many, if not most families Woods and schools work with are either ineligible or waiting for public housing.

David Nash, COO of the Asheville Housing Authority, said there are 699 people on the wait list for one-bedroom units, usually single persons or couples without children. The wait for a non-preference applicant on that list is about two years, Nash said.

"We have 117 people on the two-bedroom list, which usually indicates that the family is a parent with one child," Nash said. "A quick scan of the names suggests that at least 100 of those heads of household are women. We have 58 applicants for all other bedroom sizes combined, and 50 or so appear to be headed by women."

The wait for non-preference applicants for those is about six months.

"Anecdotally, our admissions staff is seeing an increase in applications from single mothers fleeing domestic violence," Nash said, adding that they suspect a recent collaboration with Helpmate could account for that influx.

Staff also report a mix of new applicants and former Housing Authority residents seeking to reapply after a prior move-out or eviction, he said.

"We do have ongoing preferences for homeless survivors of domestic violence, and for other homeless families who receive a commitment from an outside agency for at least one year after moving in," he said. "The community needs to identify additional case management resources to serve families with children. Particularly for families who have violated their leases with us in the past, that would increase the chances for success the second time around with us, or in other housing if they can afford it and choose to go that route."

Shifting strategies

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal authority over housing issues, defines homelessness in much stricter terms than the definition used in schools, and those definitions are not expected to change anytime soon.

HUD has announced a shift in strategy from targeting the chronically homeless to focusing more on children and families, though those funding streams will still prioritize people in longer-term homelessness.

The chronically homeless, those who have been homeless four times in a three-year period or for one full year or longer, and having a disabling condition, take priority in programs like Homeward Bound, which puts people directly into housing by subsidizing rent payments typically in the private market.

Asheville has done well in addressing chronic homelessness — in fact, the chronically homeless have been nearly eradicated in Buncombe County. This year's Point-in-Time Count showed only 47 people still experiencing chronic homelessness, down 84 percent from 293 chronically homeless individuals identified in 2005. Experts expect to effectively end chronic homelessness in Asheville by 2015.

HUD standards require that a family be completely without shelter, living in a car or on the street or other environments, "unfit for human habitation," to be defined as homeless.

But the overwhelming majority of the homeless families Buncombe County Schools serves, about 78 percent, are "doubled up," or sharing housing with another family.

HUD funds can be used for these "doubled up" families, but people who are "literally homeless" according to HUD's definition take precedent, and must be housed before funds can be funneled to those sharing housing, regardless the circumstances.

"Those definitions remain a major barrier," Perrotta said. "I rarely refer families we work with to those services, because I know they just won't be eligible. That isn't expected to change anytime soon."

Tiana Jackson said her family is still waiting. She hopes something in public housing will open up, or a private landlord will give them a shot in spite of her credit record and previous eviction.

"I have never once thought, 'I wish somebody would give me a house,'" she said. "I have never wished somebody would just hand me the keys. We just need somebody to give us an opening, to let us in and we will do whatever it takes to make it work. We already are.

"I just want to be able to cook my family turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas," she said. "That would be ... that would be everything."

By the numbers

215 - Students in Buncombe County Schools have been identified as homeless so far this year.

113 - Students in Asheville City Schools have been identified as homeless so far.

757 - Students in Buncombe County were identified as homeless last year.

699 - People on wait lists for one-bedroom units in Asheville public housing last week. An additional 175 are waiting for two-bedrooms or more.

500 - People experience homelessness on any given night in Buncombe County.

54 - Percent, or 13,526 enrolled students, in Buncombe County Schools are on free and reduced-price lunch.

Homelessness forum

Homeward Bound will host a Forum on Family Homelessness, 5:30-8 p.m. Nov. 6, at Celine & Co., 49 Broadway, Asheville. Tickets are $20 and include a meal. Visit www.homewardboundwnc.org for more information or to purchase tickets.