Response to HBO Documentary - Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County

This month, HBO is airing "Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County," a documentary about children living in motels. The documentary illustrates the many hardships experienced by homeless children, and the ways in which their health and development is jeopardized. However, it omits critical facts about the education of children and youth who are homeless. For example: The school featured in the HBO documentary, the Project Hope school, serves children in grades K through 8 in three multi-grade classrooms. Although it is open all year, the school provides a half-day of actual instruction to approximately 100 homeless children over the course of a year. Yet over 25,900 homeless children - including over 1,000 in motels - were supported in regular public schools in Orange County last year. These children receive services similar to those provided by the Project Hope school, plus a full school day, opportunities to enjoy the full range of activities available in regular schools, and interaction with children from a variety of backgrounds and living situations. Although many of Project Hope's students are homeless children, Project Hope is not a school exclusively for homeless children. The Orange County Department of Education operates Project HOPE as an alternative school enrolling both housed and homeless children. Federal education law (the McKinney-Vento Act) ensures that homeless children and youth can attend and succeed in school, despite the grave hardships of their living situations. It provides for immediate enrollment, full participation, stability in one school despite changes in temporary housing, transportation to stay in the same school, and a contact person in every school district in the country to ensure homeless students are cared for appropriately. Because the HBO film does not mention federal educational rights or programs, nor show regular schools in action, viewers might easily believe that homeless kids cannot go to regular school, or that they would not be supported as well in a regular school. And yet every "positive" element about the Project Hope school, as portrayed by the film - including transportation to keep the kids at the same school, receiving clothing, receiving free meals - are provided by mainstream schools to hundreds of thousands of homeless children in a more comprehensive fashion. Segregating homeless children from their housed peers is illegal in almost every school district in the nation. It does not represent best practice for the following reasons: Integrated programs provide all the same services - transportation, food, clothing - to more homeless children in a more comprehensive fashion. Separate schools do not provide the full range of activities and opportunities (both educational and extra-curricular) as comprehensive schools. Separate schools ultimately force homeless children to change schools more often, losing friends, teachers, and familiar surroundings. They deprive homeless children of regular peer relations. Separate schools do not provide the same quality of education as integrated programs, thus setting homeless children back and causing them to fall further behind their peers. Viewers who are interested in helping homeless children and youth in their communities should contact their local school district's homeless liaison to find out about local needs and how to help. A list of state coordinators for homeless children and youth may be found here: http://center.serve.org/nche/states/state_resources.php Viewers who are interested in helping the more than 25,900 homeless children who are homeless in Orange County should contact the Orange County Department of Education's McKinney-Vento program at http://mv.ocde.us/Home_1005.htm For More Information: Please contact Barbara Duffield at bduffield@naehcy.org or 202.364.7392.

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