Almost 9,000 Chicago students are homeless ; 'It's depressing. I don't know what the next move is'

For much of the last two years, Reg Benton, a soft-spoken 12- year-old, bounced among his grandmother's house, his dad's place and two homeless shelters with his mother.

Few people knew he was homeless -- his clothes were clean, his hair groomed. But the signs were there. His grades slipped. He stormed out of class one day. He even threw a chair in anger.

"I daydream a lot, worrying," Reg said Tuesday during an interview at the Uptown Salvation Army shelter where he's been staying with his mother and two siblings for the last month. "I was worried about getting a home and coming back with my family."

His mother, Charneise Silas, used to hold a steady job and for 12 years kept her family together in an apartment before being evicted in 2003 after a drug conviction. They've been homeless since.

Number has doubled since 2000

Reg is among 8,970 homeless kids in the Chicago Public School system this year, the highest level ever. The number has more than doubled since 2000, up from 3,500.

Advocates and educators attribute the jump to the faltering economy since the Sept. 11 attacks, particularly for low-wage workers; the number of parents in jail; gentrification, which strips neighborhoods of affordable housing, and the tearing down of CHA projects, which exposed some families living in the projects illegally. Some families also left the projects before they could be relocated, with some presumably ending up homeless.

CPS is also doing a better job of identifying homeless kids, some say, a direct result of a class-action lawsuit filed against the school system in 1992.

The law says homeless children can stay at their home school and must be bused back, even if they move far away. For years, advocates accused CPS of failing to fully comply with the law, and they settled their suit in 1997.

Since 2000, CPS has made it easier for students to stay at their home schools and significantly improved services for them, said Patricia Nix-Hodes of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which represents the families in the lawsuit.

Even so, these children still clearly suffer. "They come with anger or hostility or they're withdrawn -- they're ashamed of being homeless," said Barbara Hayes, principal of Arai Middle School, which has 64 homeless students.

Absenteeism is also a big problem, with kids kept out of school to look after younger siblings. Some are too tired to come to school after a long night at a noisy shelter.

For now, Silas, Reg's mom, tries to remain hopeful: "We're together now and it's pretty nice here."

But come fall, she doesn't know where her family will live or where she'll put her kids in school. "It's depressing," she said with a sigh. "I don't know what the next move is."

Kate N. Grossman, Chicago Sun Times, Section: News, July 20, 2005