Lacey Lee, pregnant with her third child, didn’t know where she and her family were going to sleep. It was January 2024, and they were stranded and cold.
Lee, her partner and their two children had just moved back to her hometown of Winterset in Madison County, Iowa. The town of about 5,300 people sits about 40 miles southeast of Des Moines. The family’s temporary housing arrangement fell through only a few days after they arrived.
“I didn’t expect within a week to have to uproot again and then figure out what to do from there, having nothing,” she said.
Lee called the only person she knew could help.
“If I wouldn’t have known Natalie, I don’t know who I would have reached out to or what I would have done right then in the moment,” she said.
Lee remembered Natalie Montross from her time as a student in the Winterset Community School District. Lee was identified as a student experiencing homelessness when she was in elementary school. Montross has worked with homeless students living in the district for 29 years.
Unlike many rural Iowa school districts, Winterset proactively tries to find students experiencing homelessness. The district can do that because of Montross, the district’s McKinney-Vento liaison, and her decades of experience and knowledge.
The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act requires public school districts to enroll students experiencing homelessness, even when proof of residency is lacking. The law gives K-12 students the right to remain at the school they attended when they last had permanent housing. It also obligates school districts to provide them with free transportation and academic support.
Through this Unhoused/Unschooled series, The Midwest Newsroom has found that homeless students eligible for enrollment, transportation and academic support in most rural school districts in the region are not getting these services, because the districts are undercounting students without stable housing and not applying for available funds.
Deirdre Nicholson, the executive director of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, said securing stable housing and supportive services for homeless students sooner in life rather than later is vital, because, “We are seeing students who are really set up for generational homelessness.”
Research shows youth experiencing homelessness have higher rates of absenteeism, lower academic performance, and graduation rates lower than youth who have stable housing.
“Homelessness has been obvious in our communities for a long time, but if it’s not addressed in the appropriate way, we have generational negative outcomes of housing insecurity,” Nicholson said.
Identifying students
There were 7,314 identified homeless students in Iowa for the 2022-2023 school year, according to federal data.
Nicholson said McKinney-Vento students are often undercounted because “many students fly below the radar, and many families fly below the identification radar because they don’t view themselves as homeless.”
McKinney-Vento defines “homeless children and youths” as individuals who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. That could mean living with non-relatives or “doubling up,” which means living with another family. The definition also includes more stereotypical depictions of homelessness, such as living in temporary shelters, in a vehicle or sleeping outdoors.
Another factor in under-identification, Nicholson said, is concern about a student being drawn into child welfare systems. Parents may decide not to seek support because they’re worried “their children will be adjudicated, deprived and then maybe removed from the home, or there’ll be some type of child welfare case management or social worker assigned,” Nicholson said.
However, this is not the case at the Winterset Community School District. The Winterset liaison, Montross, who helped Lee and her family find a long-stay hotel, has been leading staff presentations at the start of every school year about identifying students experiencing homelessness.
McKinney-Vento funds do not cover housing costs, but liaisons like Montross often go above and beyond to find homeless students and families places to live.
She gives this advice to all liaisons: “Make sure that you're talking to your building secretaries, your lunch ladies, your bus drivers, your teachers, letting them know what the definition of McKinney-Vento is.”
Nicholson agreed. Sometimes students are missed because people across a range of staff and teaching positions do not know what to look for.
“The registrars and attendance professionals are the first line of contact with many families. But if the McKinney-Vento liaison doesn’t have a strong relationship with the registrars at a school, then there could be a deficiency in the number of students who are identified,” Nicholson said.
There were 57 students identified as McKinney-Vento eligible in Winterset for the 2022-2023 school year, which is a lot higher compared to other Iowa school districts of similar size and proximity to a city center. Montross said this is because of her training sessions, but also the relationships she has built in the 29 years of being with the school. “I always tell them (students), ‘These four walls are safe. I don’t have to share anything outside of this. You tell me what you want me to share,” Montross said.
Identifying students is only one part of supporting these students and families. Funding is the other critical part.
Getting the money
There are two main ways school districts can access McKinney-Vento funding.
First, there are competitive federal subgrants. Each state education department decides how to disburse the money to school districts. In Iowa, there is a three-year grant cycle for public schools with at least 10 students identified as homeless. A school district with fewer than 50 identified students can qualify up to $10,000 per subgrant. A district with more than 50 identified students qualifies for up to $25,000 per subgrant.
In short, McKinney-Vento funding is not guaranteed, and school districts must compete for a limited amount of money. Only 14 of Iowa’s more than 300 school districts received competitive subgrant awards in the 2021-2024 cycle.
The second way to access McKinney-Vento funds is through Title One, a federal program that provides supplemental funding to schools for low-income students.
Nearly every school district in the country receives some Title One funding, based largely on poverty rates. Then, it’s up to the local school district to set money aside for McKinney-Vento purposes. Nicholson said the McKinney-Vento liaison might have to advocate for this, which can be challenging.
“They may not always have the connected professional development that they need to understand how to connect the dots,” Nicholson says. “I think that what’s critical — is ensuring that the liaison’s role is valued in every school district, that the liaison has access to high-quality professional development.”
The communications director and the McKinney-Vento educational consultant for the Iowa Department of Education declined requests by The Midwest Newsroom and Iowa Public Radio to participate in an interview for this story.
Finding a way
Through reporting in Iowa, Nebraska and other states, The Midwest Newsroom has found a pattern of nonprofit organizations and community members stepping in to provide support and services where federal laws and funding fall short.
When a school district, especially one that is small and rural, doesn’t receive any McKinney-Vento funding, liaisons and the community get creative.
“You can’t do one without the other,” Montross said as she described the nonprofit Community Resources In Service to People. It’s a two-person team working out of a Winterset church basement, with low natural light and a constant drone in the background.
The nonprofit was started 30 years ago by teachers who wanted to give students winter coats. CRISP still does that with a grassroots attitude, but it has grown to serve all of Madison County. The nonprofit eventually expanded its services, like covering car repair bills or subsidizing housing fees — things McKinney-Vento funding isn’t allowed to pay for.
Director Kathleen Rush has been with CRISP for two years, working daily with Montross.
“Many of the clients that I work with, she also works with, and so I will sometimes message her or call her: ‘Do you know this person that you know, like, there’s an issue happening on my end? Are you having these issues on your end?’ Or maybe a new person will come into the community, and I’ll make sure that she’s aware of them,” she said.
Typically, a family needing services meets with Rush to go over needs. CRISP has provided money for simple things like bills, but the team also finds solutions for temporary housing. CRISP provided supplies for a family to camp at the local campground last summer, Rush said.
Aside from an occasional grant, CRISP is funded by community members, according to Rush. Montross said the smallness of the town is an advantage this way.
“I think they want their community to be healthy, and that means financially, socially, academically.”
Previous reporting for this series, about McKinney-Vento funding in Nebraska, found two rural districts in that state that were also reliant on community members and nonprofits.
Should school districts have to scramble resources together when there are federal laws in place requiring support for homeless students?
In 2023, the federal government allocated nearly $129 million for McKinney-Vento students nationwide. The annual allocation is split among roughly 4,900 school districts across the country, according to federal data.
Barbara Duffield is the executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit advocacy organization for homeless education. She told The Midwest Newsroom that the amount of McKinney-Vento funding is not enough to meet the needs of students trying to get an education while grappling with unstable housing.
“You look at how many school districts there are in the country and in each state, and it just doesn't go that far,” Duffield said. “You don’t see the students, so you don’t think they’re there. Then you don’t set aside enough funding to have the capacity to go out and find the students.”
Duffield said McKinney-Vento students are often swept under the rug by state education departments. For example, the Iowa Department of Education's State of Iowa report card doesn’t show educational outcomes for homeless students.
Duffield said there is a lack of government oversight of the McKinney-Vento program, including liaisons.
“There should be a point of contact at every school building site, because it’s too big of a job for one person at the district level,” Duffield said.
Duffield also said funding for McKinney-Vento should be consistent and guaranteed by Congress.
Home at last
Through the efforts of Montross, Winterset determined that Lee’s oldest child, a kindergartner, was eligible for support and services as a McKinney-Vento student.
CRISP helped with funding a hotel stay for the family, where they ended up living for six months. The alternative would likely have been an emergency shelter in Des Moines, about an hour away.
“This year has been one of the, I guess, most rough since I’ve been an adult,” Lee said.
Living in a single hotel room while pregnant and taking care of a toddler and a kindergartener was difficult. The family shared one bathroom, only had a hot plate and microwave to make dinner, and had few moments of privacy.
“He (son) was, like, telling friends, ‘Oh, we live at a hotel, you know, just little things like that, and they would make me feel bad as a parent,” Lee said.
A few months later, in the summer, Lee and her family found permanent housing in Winterset.
CRISP directly provided funds for their needs, and the impact goes beyond housing costs and school supplies.
Lee said her kindergartener son is doing well in school and can participate in field trips and after-school activities. She also said he’s now “excited to invite friends or things like that, because it’s like, ‘Oh, we can do that now.’”
And after experiencing months of depression, Lee says she’s doing better, and her family is thriving in Winterset. “It’s somewhere to build, and we’re finally there. We can build up from here,” she said.
There is not a grassroots nonprofit like CRISP in every rural Iowa school district. Most liaisons in Iowa have a different primary job, like assistant principal or nurse, which limits how much time they can dedicate to reaching out to families and students.
While Montross and Rush keep showing up for their community, homelessness is becoming a reality for many adults and youth in Iowa.
“Don’t judge. Don’t judge. You never know what another person’s been through,” Monstross said.
Daniel Wheaton contributed to this report.
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
There are many ways you can contact us with story ideas and leads, and you can find that information here.
See previous stories in this series:
- A 'hidden population' of homeless students in the Midwest isn't getting school services
- It’s a team effort to ensure rural students who are homeless get an equal education
METHODS
To tell this story, reporter Meghan McKinney interviewed a school district's McKinney-Vento liaison, a parent who was a McKinney-Vento recipient and whose son is now a McKinney-Vento recipient, the director of a nonprofit who helps McKinney-Vento students and other low-income families, and a national expert on students experiencing homelessness. She also reviewed data and research materials about homeless education in the region.
Data journalist Daniel Wheaton requested counts of students experiencing homelessness from the Iowa Department of Education. He built the map showing the number of students in each school district who qualified for McKinney-Vento support in 2022-23 as well as the percentage of students who qualified for free and reduced lunch.
REFERENCES
- McKinney-Vento Act
- McKinney-Vento Allocations
- Educating Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Summary of Research 2015 - 2022
- Des Moines metro homeless numbers soar to record high, new count shows
TYPE OF ARTICLE
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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