A one-year pilot program between the state’s Department of Family and Support Services and Chicago Public Schools will target homeless students in Englewood.
A one-year pilot program between the state’s Department of Family and Support Services and Chicago Public Schools will target homeless students in Englewood.
The South Side community was chosen because there are a lot of homeless students there who attend CPS schools, said Tremel Daniel, coordinator of the school district’s Education Support for Students in Temporary Living Situation Department. The program was formerly called the Homeless Education Program.
Parker Community Academy elementary school, 6800 S. Stewart Ave., had 197 homeless students as of June 30, and Paul Robeson High School, 6835 S. Normal Blvd., had 150. In total, there are 12,525 homeless CPS students, according to Daniel.
Program officials explained that families living from one place to another, without stable housing, would be targeted.
The program has a minimum target of 500 families it plans to assist with the goal of expanding it beyond Englewood in 2012, said Mary Ellen Caron, commissioner for the city’s Family and Support Services.
“Students whose families live one week with this relative or friend and another week somewhere else is our target group,” Caron said. “Students living in shelters are already receiving some of the same assistance the program will provide although if those families came to us for additional assistance we would not turn them away.”
She said that the program will provide such services as housing and employment assistance and will be funded by $3 million in federal stimulus money she expects to receive by September.
After the one-year pilot program, Caron said public and private funding would be sought to expand and continue the program with the goal of helping all CPS homeless families.
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