Studying without a home in La Pine

Published 4:00 am Monday, February 5, 2007

LA PINE – As snow began to fall in La Pine, Taighlor Story huddled on a couch with her cat.

The 7-year-old girl stroked Snowbell’s fur while munching on a red apple and warming her toes by a space heater that hummed in the corner. SpongeBob SquarePants sang on the TV.

Like many school children, Taighlor walks to the bus each morning, plays at recess and does her homework.

But Taighlor has no home.

At least, not in the traditional sense. The La Pine Elementary School second-grader and her mom live in a 30-foot RV at Whispering Pines RV Park. It’s a situation that Bend-La Pine Schools classifies as homeless. While that term often conjures up images of sleeping on the streets or under bridges, school officials label anyone homeless who does not have a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. It can include people who sleep in cars, parks – even RVs.

While having homeless students is not unique to La Pine, officials say the combination of a lack of affordable housing, transportation and family wage jobs have made it more difficult for La Pine families. La Pine does not have more homeless students than Bend, but many have low-paying jobs, no health insurance and few options.

”We really are talking about working with the most needy families,” said Julie Lyche, director of the Family Access Network, an organization that helps students with basic services. ”There are always people falling through the gap. There are always people one paycheck away from being homeless … It’s just a lot easier to get around in Bend.”

Tracking the most needy

By state and federal law, the district must track homeless students, said Dana Arntson, the district’s student services coordinator.

Each year, Arntson said the schools record any child who voluntarily says he or she has no home. There is no set time that students report themselves as homeless, and Arntson said school officials typically do not ask. However, Lyche said the reporting often happens when a teacher notes a child who may need basic school supplies, and a conversation follows regarding what else that person needs, such as a home.

Last year, there were roughly 82 homeless student cases in La Pine, according to data from Bend-La Pine Schools. The district had 391 total cases. The year before, there were 236 cases districtwide and 283 in the 2003-04 school year. Those numbers could be higher or lower, Arntson added, because the data is voluntary and self-reported.

And once students enter the district’s database, the district doesn’t usually delete their information.

That database, Arntson added, has no means of tracking the unknown number of children – like Taighlor – who have not reported themselves as homeless.

Taighlor said she has not even told her friends.

Her mom guessed why.

”If kids did know, they’d probably give her a hard time,” said Tammy Story, 48. ”Some of the kids around here are rough.”

As a result, Tammy said Taighlor cannot have friends over often. The kitchen blends into the living room, bathroom and bedroom. The door freezes shut. Blankets trap heat from escaping through their windows. And the TV rests atop plastic clothes hampers.

”It’s so small here,” Taighlor said.

The Storys moved to La Pine from Eugene, Tammy said. Before that, she worked at a shipyard in Seattle, but then began collecting unemployment benefits.

Aside from the size, Taighlor added that living in an RV has not affected school much. She walks to the bus stop each morning, studies and comes home.

But for other children, Arntson said, being homeless can interrupt their academic lives as they move from place to place.

”Quite often, they end up going to several different schools,” she said. ”That’s a function of their families working through their homeless issues.”

Story knows she could get help from the district through the Family Access Network, but has not yet set up a meeting with a liaison at the La Pine Elementary School.

”A lot of times it’s difficult for these families to figure out where to go,” Lyche said. ”Oftentimes our FAN advocates are really trying to scramble to help these families make ends meet.”

Scrambling to help

The Family Access Network connects Deschutes County students to food, shelter, clothing and other basic needs. In La Pine and other cities, the network places an ”advocate,” or helper, at each school.

But Lyche said La Pine has the most needy families, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of quality of life. Many have low-paying jobs and no health insurance.

”Some of them don’t have insurance or food,” said Janet Sicora, La Pine High School’s advocate. ”They need the help.”

Pete Penzenik with the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office agreed with Sicora.

While driving through the outskirts of La Pine last month, he pointed to the RV parks, like Whispering Pines, where Taighlor lives.

Some, he said, get into the homeless cycle through wasting their money on drugs. But others, Penzenik argued, have no choice.

”They can’t afford anywhere else,” he said. ”They’re living below the poverty line.”

The situation is getting better and worse – depending on who one asks. The number of homeless students has been growing, but Arntson attributed that to better reporting and services through the La Pine FAN advocates.

Sicora and the others have given students everything from coats to snow boots.

”If their basics are met, they can come to school and not worry about where there going to sleep at night,” said Heather Schleigh, La Pine Middle School’s FAN advocate. ”Our main goal is to make sure our kids have food in their stomach, and warm clothes.”

Still, Lyche said, more work must be done.

She wants to do a better job providing heating assistance to homeless students, and Sicora said some La Pine families still have difficulty paying their utility bills.

”We have a lot of need,” Lyche said. ”The trick in La Pine is we’re very light on the social services available.”

‘A lot of need’

One of La Pine’s needs is having enough housing that people can afford.

The median sales amount of a home in La Pine was $183,500 in 2006, up from $148,450 in 2005 and $90,640 in 2002, according to the Central Oregon Association of Realtors. By comparison, Bend’s median sales amount in 2006 was $351,978, and Redmond’s was $262,749.

The price tags of La Pine’s homes still rank lower than other Central Oregon cities.

And La Pine area residents have few options for temporary housing.

Bend has the Bethlehem Inn, which can house people indefinitely.

The La Pine St. Vincent de Paul can put people up in a hotel room for the night, but not long term.

One of the only other options lies with the Newberry Habitat for Humanity, which has built 16 homes for families in need since 1993.

”It was hard for me to find a home,” Story said, adding that she finally had to settle on paying $498 a month for her RV in Whispering Pines.

La Pine’s homeless situation mirrors Redmond’s, said Melinda Ennes with the Redmond School District. She reported about 140 homeless cases last year, up from 125 the year before, for similar reasons.

”There’s nowhere to go,” Ennes said. ”There’s no sheltering, very few hotels that allow people to stay weekly. (That’s) our face of homelessness.”

Ennes pointed to another factor – no public transportation.

Neither La Pine nor Redmond has a city bus service.

La Pine residents just got their first official private service. But Central Cascade Lines’ 23-passenger bus does not make many stops aside from the key places in Bend. It stops at Costco, Bend Memorial Clinic, St. Charles Medical Center-Bend, Central Oregon Community College and other places.

The lack of transportation only furthers the cycle of homelessness, Lyche added. Because La Pine has few high-paying jobs, many residents drive to Bend for work.

But without a vehicle, they may be stuck in La Pine with a job that may not pay enough to cover the cost of a home. The average hourly La Pine wage is about $8 to $9, said Rose Alsbury, executive director of the La Pine Chamber of Commerce.

Those jobs, Alsbury said, are typically restaurant and service-industry positions. By comparison, Central Oregon’s average hourly wages in 2006 for the corresponding categories were often $10 and up – as high as $14.91 an hour, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

”A lot of these people are the working poor,” Lyche said. ”One bad medical situation and you’ve lost your car, lost your transportation to get to the job, and the whole family situation spirals down.”

But looking back, Story said that, in their case, they would not change this time of their lives.

”That builds character,” Story said, while playing with her daughter’s hair. ”If people got everything on a silver platter, they would not get a taste of reality. … Children should see some rough spots in life, or they’re going to have one hell of an awakening.”