Chapter 3: Lessons Learned from the Demonstration Projects

Most of the lessons learned from the demonstration projects are reflected in the previous discussions. However, inter- views with project administrators resulted in the identification of some overarching lessons relevant to serving homeless children and families.

• Homeless parents need as much support and nurturance as their children. Homeless parents are under a great deal of stress and require extensive support. Staff must be open, flexible, and non-judgmental when working with these parents. For example, just telling a parent that a child needs to go to the dentist usually is not sufficient. Instead, staff may need to tell a parent several times and even make the appointment and accompany the parent and child to the appointment.
• Homeless children often are overlooked by agencies serving homeless families. Homelessness is a great hardship for children, and in most communities the services are not there for them. Demonstration projects had to expend a great deal of effort to keep the needs of children in the forefront of thinking about services for these families. As one project director noted: "We are the hub that keeps everyone focused on the kids."
• Transportation services are essential. The importance of this service cannot be overstated. As one project director said: "It's expensive, but it's necessary."
• Homeless families require children's programming for at least 9 hours a day. Full-day services that begin early in the morning and extend to at least 6:00 p.m. are necessary to ensure that families will be able to keep their children in Head Start, and that parents will be able to get the services they need or obtain full-time employment.
• Head Start is a "newcomer" in the homeless services arena, and time is needed to establish credibility. To a large extent, the success of these projects was contingent on their ability to collaborate with agencies serving homeless families. Many of these agencies were ones that the Head Start grantee had not collaborated with in the past. Project directors indicated that time was needed to establish Head Start agency credibility in the area of homeless services and make sure that all systems were in place before attempting to implement the project.
• Many homeless families are not considered to be homeless according to definitions of many community services agencies and the McKinney Act. Several project directors noted that they served many families who were doubled up with other families and tended to move frequently from place to place. Children from these families were reported to have less stability in their lives than those who resided in shelters or even motels and often exhibited greater socioemotional problems. However, it was very difficult to obtain services for these families because they often did not meet national, state, or local definitions of homelessness.
• Welfare reforms made it more difficult to serve homeless families and more difficult for homeless families to access the services they need. Eight project directors provided their perceptions of the impact of welfare reform on the families they served:
• Welfare reform has made it more difficult for people to be eligible or maintain eligibility for TANF and thus they are not eligible for shelters in our community. This means that more families are doubling up rather than going into shelters. These people usually are not viewed as homeless, although in reality they are homeless and often have as great, or greater, problems than families residing in shelters. (Boston)
• Welfare reform has meant that shelters are requiring greater compliance with work requirements. Shelter staff now focus on "where do we get you a job," rather than "how do we make positive changes in this family." Consequently, they are providing the family with fewer social supports, and the Head Start program often has to fill in the gaps. (Phoenix)
• TANF regulations add stress to homeless families because they often mean that families have to move on to work or school at the same time that they are homeless, and this is very difficult. Often they can-not get the services they need. (Cedar Rapids)
• More families are becoming homeless as they lose their benefits. For example, they may lose their Food Stamps and start taking money from rent to buy food; then they do not pay rent and may get eviction notices. Once they get an eviction on their record, it is extremely difficult for them to find housing. (Minneapolis)
• One of the impacts has been that staff members at the Department of Social Services are confused about eligibility requirements for child care benefits, and families are sometimes losing this benefit inappropriately. To ensure that services are provided to children on a continuous basis, the project has had to provide funds for child care until the problems are straightened out. (Seattle)
• Kentucky's new child care benefits regulations deny benefits to families with incomes over 133 percent of poverty level. This comes to about $7.00 per hour for a family of three, which is not sufficient to pay for child care. Also, one aspect of the new rule is that once you select a child care provider, you must keep the same one for at least six months. This is a problem for homeless families because they may move to a new place that is some distance from the provider. It also makes it difficult to enroll children in Head Start because families may have already selected a provider. (Lexington)
• There are not enough full-day, full-year Head Start slots, or even child care slots, to meet the needs of all the welfare families in which mothers are now being required to work. (Oakland)