Homeless Children: Needs and Services

Anne Hicks-CoolickPatricia Burnside-EatonArdith Peters

Kennesaw State University

ABSTRACT: This study explored needs of homeless children and shelter services avail-able to them. The first phase of this mixed-method study consisted of open-ended inter-views of key personnel in six diverse homeless shelters in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia.This qualitative data gave direction to the creation of a questionnaire used in a largerfollow-up survey of shelters in the state of Georgia. Roughly two-thirds of the 102 report-ing shelters that served children provided food, clothing, and school supplies with 40%offering some form of transportation. More than 75% of the shelters were full and didnot have space currently available for children, with an additional 10% having only oneor two available beds. Most of the shelters lacked important services in the areas ofmedical and developmental assessments, access to education, childcare, and parent train-ing. Forty-seven percent lacked onsite worker training in the characteristics and needsof homeless children. In addition, while the McKinney Act legally mandates ways toserve homeless children, findings indicate that over half of key informants in homelessshelters were unfamiliar with the law.

KEY WORDS: homeless children; homeless shelters; staff training; McKinney Act.

In the United States (U.S.), homelessness is a complex, often misun-derstood social problem. The National Low Income Housing Coalition(2003) reports that there are as many as 800,000 homeless people inthe country on any given night and as many as 3.5 million Americansspend some time homeless each year. While data indicate that manyhomeless individuals suffer from addiction and/or mental illness, allhomeless people do not fit this profile (National Coalition for the Home-less [NCH], 2002a). In fact, 25% of the homeless work, but cannot afforda place to live, and 37% are families, the majority of whom are singlefemales with children (National Law Center on Homelessness and Pov-erty, 1997). Furthermore, children comprise anywhere from 25% to39% of the total homeless population, and there may be over a million

Correspondence should be directed to Anne Hicks-Coolick, Kennesaw State University,Department of Human Services, 1000 Chastain Rd. #1807, Kennesaw, GA 30144; e-mail:ahicksco@kennesaw.edu.

Child & Youth Care Forum, 32(4), August 2003 2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 197

Child & Youth Care Forum198

homeless children in America (Egan, 2002; Nunez & Fox, 1999; UrbanInstitute, 2000). As a result of poverty and homelessness, these childrenoften suffer emotional, behavioral, and educational problems (Zima,Bussing, Bystritsky, Widawski, Belin, & Benjamin, 1999). The U.S. hasmade minimal commitments to protect children from the underlyingeconomic and social causes of homelessness. However, in the face ofthe national crisis of children, the first line of defense is the emergencyshelter and community-based services. This article presents the find-ings of a mixed-method study designed to clarify the needs of homelesschildren and shelter services available to them.

Lack of Shelter for Homeless Children

The lack of shelter services for homeless families has fast become anational social emergency. For example, families constitute 75% of thepopulation in New York City’s homeless shelters, where over 13,000children slept in shelter settings during the winter of 2002 (Eagan,2002). In Georgia, an estimated 15,000 children were homeless some-time during the 2000 school year (Georgia Coalition to End Homeless-ness, 2002). Due to U.S. policy’s failure to address issues such as livablewages, affordable housing, adequate transportation, decline in publicassistance, and lack of education and training, there is evidence thatthe number of homeless families and children is increasing at an alarm-ing rate (Egan, 2002; Fox & Nunez, 1999; Freeman, 2002; NCH, 2002a).This rise is especially problematic since there have not been enoughavailable shelter services for this population of homeless in the pastand the trend continues (NCH, 2002b). Information from the U.S. Con-ference of Mayors (2001) indicates that in 2001, 52% of emergencyshelter requests from families in the U.S. were denied, an increase of22% in one year (cited in NCH, 2002b). The needs of the rising numberof homeless families with children are exacerbated by the lack of shelterservices afforded them.

Characteristics of Homeless Children

The current study focuses on familial homeless children who arehomeless along with their adult caregiver (Shane, 1996). Often therights of these children become subordinate to the rights of their home-less parent. Most homeless children within a familial setting are underthe age of twelve, experience acute psychosocial problems, and aredetached from services and extended family (Glasser, 1994, Letiecq,

Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 199

Anderson, & Koblinsky, 1998; Nunez & Fox, 1999; Rabideau & Toro,1997). In some of the seminal work on homeless children, Bassuk andRosenberg (1990) found that the experience of homelessness exacer-bates the experience of poverty. Most of the relatively few empiricalstudies of the needs of homeless children that have been carried outin the past several years support the findings of this earlier work.

Nearly half of homeless children experience at least one develop-mental delay and many have difficulty with language skills, fine/grossmotor coordination, and/or social and personal development (Karger &Stoesz, 1998). In addition, nearly half shows symptoms of depressionand anxiety, with one-third meeting the criteria for a diagnosis ofclinical depression. Results of a study by Zima et al. (1999) indicate that76% of homeless children in their sample had a mother who screenedpositive for major depression, schizophrenia, substance abuse or highdistress. Almost half of the children were victims or witnesses of seriousviolence. In addition, 27% had severe behavioral problems, almost two-thirds had a history of a major loss or separation, and 45% had livedin three or more different places within the past year. Along with thesepsychosocial problems, homeless children have difficulty receiving for-mal education.

Educating Homeless Youth

Homeless youth are entitled to formal education consisting of bothdaycare and public school. Homeless children in daycare centers mayhave developmental delays that relate directly to the deprivationalenvironments of homelessness (Youngblade & Mulvihill, 1998). How-ever, these symptoms and behaviors have been shown to be reversiblewith consistent and stable education (Bassuk, Weinreb, Dawson, Per-loff, & Buckner, 1997). Few daycare centers provide specialized servicesfor indigent or homeless children. The few that do exist have little orno public funding, with only a few slots for those who are unable topay or need sliding scale fees (National Law Center on Homelessnessand Poverty, 1997). Often, these affordable centers are attached tothe homeless shelter. If the homeless parent loses shelter support orhousing, the child is also displaced. As the parent’s income rises, slidingdaycare fees may increase too rapidly to keep up.

At least 43% of homeless children do not attend school on a regularbasis, and approximately 50% have failed at least one grade (EducatingHomeless Children, 2000; Foscarinis & McCarthy, 2000). According toRafferty (1999), school aged homeless children experience continualdisruption or termination of their education and seldom receive the

Child & Youth Care Forum200

same services as their permanently housed peers. She cites studiesthat indicate some of the educational needs of homeless children as:a) remediation and tutoring; b) support services such as counseling;and c) after school/extended day/summer programs.

Obstacles to homeless children’s attending schools often may resultfrom their caretakers’ needs and fears such as: (a) preoccupation withfinding food and shelter; (b) concern that an abusive parent will locatethe children; (c) concern that child welfare will take the children; and(d) lack of motivation to send children to school (Rafferty, 1999). Fur-ther, there are significant barriers to homeless children attendingschool that are inherent in school systems, including residency andrecord requirements (McCarthy, 2000). While the United States ad-dresses most of these school problems in the McKinney Act (1987),many schools and shelters do not comply (Educating Homeless Chil-dren, 2000).

The McKinney Act

In the United States, the 1987 McKinney Act was landmark legisla-tion enacted to provide emergency assistance to homeless persons inorder to reduce or obliterate homelessness. It dictates that homelesschildren be allowed to enroll and attend preschool or school programs.This law further allows for them to continue their education either attheir home school or the school serving their shelter, whichever servestheir best interest. School personnel are required to accept “a homelesschild who attempts to enroll in their school, even if that child doesnot have immunization records, transcripts, or a permanent address”(Educating Homeless Children, 2002, p. 3). These children are to receivethe same public education as any other child, without being segregatedbecause of their homelessness. Knowledge of the McKinney Act is es-sential for those who provide services to homeless children includingshelter workers, educators, advocates, and legislators. Although theMcKinney Act helped expand services and educational opportunitiesfor homeless children, many needs remain. Currently, it is unclear howhomeless shelters in the United States address these needs. This studyinvestigates the services available for homeless children in the stateof Georgia.

Methodology

Due to the paucity of literature describing services for homelesschildren, a mixed-method study was designed to explore their needsand shelter services available to them (O’Sullivan & Rassel, 1999;

Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 201

Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). The researchers wanted to conduct alarge-scale survey of service providers for homeless children in thestate of Georgia. However, more information about the current statusof services to children in homeless shelters was needed in order to createa meaningful quantitative questionnaire. Therefore the researchersdesigned a mixed-method study using both qualitative and quantitativemethods. To better understand current practices and gaps in services,the first phase of the study consisted of open-ended interviews of keypersonnel in homeless shelters. This qualitative data gave direction tothe second phase of the study, a quantitative survey of homeless shel-ters in the state. Three research questions guided this study: What arethe needs of homeless children? What shelter services are available tochildren? What are the gaps in shelter services for children?

Qualitative Sample

Maximum variation sampling, a type of qualitative purposive sam-pling, was used because it allows documentation of diversity and com-monalities across sites, with a relatively small sample size (Patton,1990). The researchers believed that, in an exploratory study, shelterdirectors would be best suited to provide information on shelter ser-vices. Therefore, the primary researcher interviewed shelter or child-care directors in six homeless shelters in the metropolitan Atlanta,Georgia area. Of the six selected shelters, one was in the inner cityand others represented suburban/urban fringe areas. Several of theseshelters only had one full-time worker with other services provided byvolunteers or consultants.

Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis

A semi-structured interview guide with three major questions wasused to collect the qualitative data. The questions were:

1. What services does your facility offer to homeless children?2. What needs are not being met at your facility?3. What barriers prevent your agency from providing these services?

In addition, the respondents’ knowledge of the McKinney Act was as-sessed. Face-to-face interviews lasted from 45 to 90 minutes and wereaudio taped. The researcher documented observations of the shelterand collected artifacts such as pamphlets and other literature, whenavailable, to increase trustworthiness of the findings.

Child & Youth Care Forum202

The principal data consisted of the six interview transcripts, re-searcher observation notes, and artifacts. Two researchers analyzedthese data using inductive content analysis (Hicks-Coolick, 1997; Pat-ton, 1990). They independently read the transcripts, observation notes,and literature from each site and developed initial conceptual categoriesof needs, services and gaps in services. Then the researchers comparedand negotiated common themes, consistencies, and differences foundin data from all six sites (see Table 1).

Qualitative Findings

The respondents appeared to be caring individuals who did the bestthat they could with limited resources. Each shared information onthe services available for children in the individual shelters. Threecategories of need emerged from the data analysis process.

Care Needs

Health care for homeless children is not available on a regular basisand, when available, is not in a child-friendly environment. Early as-sessment is important in determining hearing and vision difficultiesas well as developmental delays. Additionally, not enough daycare spacesare available. In summary, gaps in care include developmental assess-ments, medical screenings, including vision and hearing, and childcare.

Service Needs

Most notably, all respondents feel strongly that more shelter spaceis needed. It is noteworthy that a shelter director in one large metropoli-tan county said that, while the county has social workers in the schoolsto work with homeless children, the county has no shelters for homelessfamilies. Respondents also suggest services such as before and afterschool care, mentoring, tutoring, and support in school attendance.Both general and school related transportation is lacking. Parent ser-vices need improvement. The respondents suggest that support groupsfor parents include self-advocacy and child-advocacy training. Theyindicate a further need for child case management, parent case manage-ment, child advocacy, and counseling.

Knowledge Needs

Homeless shelter staff members require more professional trainingin the needs of homeless children, red flags for early intervention,knowledge of special education, and cultural sensitivity. Parents, pro-

Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 203

Tab

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Child & Youth Care Forum204

Tab

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Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 205

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Child & Youth Care Forum206

viders, educators, and legislators lack information relating to the Mc-Kinney Act.

Quantitative Survey

Based upon the results of the qualitative findings described above,the researchers created a quantitative survey to augment knowledgeon needs of homeless children and shelter services available to themin the state of Georgia.

Quantitative Sample Selection

A convenience sample consisting of the mailing list of directors of600 agencies that provide services to the homeless population through-out the state was obtained from the Georgia Coalition to End Homeless-ness. The survey was mailed to the directors of each of these 600agencies.

Quantitative Data Collection and Analysis

The survey instrument consisted of 13 questions with spaces forcomments. Based upon the previous qualitative findings, the questionsdirectly addressed available services for homeless children. For exam-ple, the first question was: Which of the following services do you offerto homeless children? (a) before school supervised study time; (b) afterschool supervised care; (c) preschool childcare; (d) clothing; (e) food;(f) school supplies; (g) transportation; (h) medical assessments; (i) de-velopmental assessments; and/or (j) emotional assessments. AdditionalLikert-type questions related to how the respondents perceived thequality of services offered by their shelters. For example: How do yourate the counseling services at your shelter? The categories for thesevariables included: (a) do not offer this service, (b) poor, (c) fair, (d)good, or (e) excellent. The complete survey is available from the authors.

Two hundred and three directors of agencies (or their designees) thatprovide services for the homeless, a 34% return rate, completed thesurvey. While this return rate may seem low, in retrospect it is notsurprising. The list from the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessnesscontained names of agencies that provide a wide array of homelessservices. For example, there were lawyers, therapists, advocates, tran-sitional housing sites, and medical facilities, including rehabilitationservice agencies for drug abuse and mental illness. Therefore, nearly

Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 207

half of those responding to the survey did not offer shelter services tochildren and, thus, were omitted from further data analysis. The finaldata analysis was based on the responses from 102 shelter directorsor their designees that served homeless children.

Quantitative Findings

The quantitative findings support the findings of the qualitativeinterviews. According to Table 2, the 102 responding agencies providedshelter and other assistance for homeless children. Roughly two-thirdsprovided food, clothing, and school supplies and 40% (N = 41) offeredsome form of transportation. However, the most critical finding is thelack of shelter space for homeless children. At the time of the survey,the respondents indicated that more than 75% (N = 77) of the shelterswere full and did not have spaces currently available for children, withan additional 10% (N = 10) having only one or two available beds. Inother words, homeless children were filling virtually every bed reportedby the respondents.

Data also indicated a lack of services including before school care,after school care and childcare. Less than two-thirds of the sheltersoffered parent support groups within the facility. Sixty-six percent (N

Table 2Services Offered to Children at Homeless Shelters in a

Sample of Service Providers in the State of Georgia (N = 102)

Available Services Frequency Percentage

Before school supervised study time 10 9.8Afterschool supervised care 28 27.5Preschool childcare 26 25.5Clothing 69 67.6Food 69 67.6School supplies 67 65.7Transportation 41 40.2Medical assessment 22 21.6Developmental assessment 19 18.6Emotional assessment 22 21.6Parent support groups 37 36.3Summer day camp 6 5.9

Child & Youth Care Forum208

= 67) of the total respondents offered no training to parents on how toadvocate for the rights of their children, either for services or education.Forty-seven percent of the shelters (N = 48) offered no training for theirworkers regarding the needs of homeless children. One of the mosttelling pieces of information related to the knowledge of the McKinneyAct. Fifty percent (N = 50) of the respondents did not know anythingat all about the McKinney Act, with an additional 23% rating theirknowledge as only fair or poor. This is of particular concern whenone considers that the data came from directors or their designees ofagencies that professed to serve homeless children.

The shelters that offered services to children rated the quality ofthose services. Approximately half of the respondents offered case man-agement and counseling (N = 56), with 73% of those rating these ser-vices as good or excellent (N = 41). Approximately one-third conductedsome form of medical assessments (N = 32), with 59% of those ratingthe quality of these assessments as good or excellent (N = 19). Thirty-one percent (N = 31) offered transportation to and from school, with74% of those rating the services as good or excellent (N = 22).

Limitations of the Study

The main limitations of this study relate to the sample selectionand an oversight in the development of the survey questionnaire. Inretrospect, the mailing list should have been culled to represent onlyhomeless shelters. If this had been done, potential for an increasedreturn rate would have been maximized. A limitation in the question-naire was that it did not ask what community resources were availableto the shelter or if the shelter was utilizing these resources. However,since this was an exploratory study, the findings lay the groundworkfor other research on the needs of homeless children and the servicesavailable to them.

Discussion

The findings of the current exploratory study support others thataddress the multiple needs of homeless families and children (Harms,Ray, Richardson & Rolandelli, 1998). According to the results of thisstudy, many of the needs of these children are being met to some degree;yet, gaps remain. Perhaps most critical, is the lack of shelter space forchildren. The responses in this survey were consistent with the nationaltrend of insufficient shelter space to provide for the growing numberof homeless families. The failure of the U.S. to sign the U.N. Declaration

Anne Hicks-Coolick, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters 209

on the Rights of Children (Save the Children, 2003) suggests a lack oftotal commitment to child welfare. This failure to focus on children’swell being is borne out in the plight of a million homeless children andmillions more living in poverty. To suggest the need for more shelterbeds for children is not to negate the need for enlightened policy andpermanent housing. The scope of this study, however, is emergencyshelter.

Only a small percentage of shelters in this study offered on-siteservices for children such as case management, tutoring, before andafter school study time, transportation, and parent groups. However,homeless children would benefit if these services were offered at allshelters that serve them. Some of the identified needs and servicescould be addressed by community based-initiatives. These might in-clude: dental, medical, emotional, and educational assessments as wellcounseling and childcare. Included in the findings was a dire lack ofknowledge about the needs and rights of homeless children. An impor-tant initiative for all existing homeless shelters serving children is tocreate appropriate training for paid and volunteer staff. First, staffshould become more sensitive to the special characteristics of homelesschildren. In addition, they would have access to new knowledge as itunfolds. They should be trained to recognize red flags for developmentaland behavior problems. Finally, it is incumbent upon those concernedwith the needs of homeless children to be informed of and comply withthe requirements in the McKinney Act.

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Egan, J. (March 24, 2002). The hidden lives of homeless children. The New York TimesMagazine, Section 6, 32–37.

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