Homeless families with school-aged kids on the rise in Sarasota-Manatee and Florida

Earlier this year, Mendjana “MJ” Oge sat down with her 7-year-old son.

What would he think, she asked Djaneli, who went by DJ, if he had to change schools one more time?

Since starting first grade in the fall, DJ was now in his third school in six months while his family – uprooted by hurricanes and the housing crisis – bounced between the homes of family and friends.  

“Aww, man, but why, Mom?” DJ asked.

North Port’s Atwater Elementary was his favorite. He loved his teacher and classmates. What’s more, Oge knew, the school was a rock of stability for her studious son during months of turmoil.

Like hundreds of parents locally and tens of thousands across the state, Oge, 28, had joined the ranks of Florida’s biggest homeless population:  families with school-age kids.

It is a problem with devastating consequences for children’s long-term educational outcomes, studies show. And it is a problem – due to the housing crisis – that is on the rise.   

In addition, as Oge raced to find an affordable rental, she juggled an equally frustrating hunt for childcare, all without a car – falling into what caseworkers call a “trifecta” of crises in housing, childcare, and transportation.

A former certified nursing assistant and flight attendant, Oge was determined to restore stability for her kids. She promised to keep looking – more resolved than ever to secure something near his school.

“I am going to break my neck to try to keep him there,” she thought.  

Homeless, but not counted by the system

Every year, hundreds of school-aged kids and their families have to leave the area because working parents can no longer afford to live here, according to Schoolhouse Link, a program that offers support to homeless students and their parents through Sarasota Schools.  

Even though researchers have identified the shortage of affordable housing as the root cause of student homelessness, most homeless schoolchildren and their families cannot qualify for rapid re-housing help through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

That’s because the majority of them statewide, or three-quarters, report being “doubled up” or “couch surfing” in the homes of relatives or friends. Unlike with stays in emergency shelters, the outdoors, cars, or motels paid by an agency, HUD does not define couch surfing as homeless (though state education officials do). Therefore, couch surfers also are not captured in communities’ annual HUD-backed Point in Time homeless counts.

Still, some aid does exist for couch-surfing families through state funds as well as local private and public dollars and case management to prevent them from winding up on the street, said Taylor Neighbors, CEO of the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness.

Yet even HUD’s more narrow definition shows that an increasing number of homeless families with small kids are indeed winding up on the street. Their statewide numbers from Point in Time counts rose from 2,061 to 2,308 between 2022 and 2024, according to the Florida Council on Homelessness.

And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the problem, Neighbors said, noting the limitations of Point in Time counts that rely on volunteers and can easily miss many unsheltered families living in cars.  

Instead, another telling figure comes from Suncoast’s specialist working with families with minor kids. Just since October, he has fielded 1,100 unduplicated calls for help, mostly from Sarasota County.

“He is on the phone all day long solving problems with families,” Neighbors said.

But the most indicative number of all when it comes to homeless schoolchildren and families is from the Department of Education, advocates say. That number does include couch surfers. And it has been soaring.

Homeless family numbers surpassing pre-pandemic levels

After a drop during the pandemic – due to school closures, eviction moratoriums, federal rent assistance and child tax credits – the number of homeless families with school-age kids has rebounded amid drastically increased housing costs. And now that COVID-era relief programs have ended, the numbers are surpassing pre-pandemic levels locally, in Florida and across the nation.

For instance, statewide, from a high of 91,700 homeless K-12 students in 2018-19 before the pandemic, the number fell to about 64,000 during the heart of the pandemic before rising to almost 95,000 in 2022-23.

Sarasota and Manatee counties have mirrored this trend.

In Manatee County – whose numbers are twice as high as Sarasota’s – the amount of homeless students dropped from 1,406 in 2018-19 to 1,203 children last year, according to Project Heart, the program helping homeless students and families in that district. But so far this school year, Manatee’s numbers are at 1,524 – and counting.

In Sarasota County, numbers also fell immediately after the pandemic, from 833 homeless students to as low as 611 – before spiking again to 1,055 in 2022-23, said Ellen McLaughlin, program director with Schoolhouse Link. This year, they are on track to surpass pre-pandemic levels, she said.

The size of Florida’s population of homeless families with school-aged children is tens of thousands greater than that of HUD-counted groups, such as seniors, veterans and people with mental illnesses.

But even the schools’ numbers don’t tell the whole story, McLaughlin stressed.

Shelterless and shell-shocked

The reason is that some parents are too afraid to come forward, she said, worried that child welfare authorities will take away their children because of the family’s homelessness – a phenomenon happening nationwide.  

Some with no relatives nearby or anywhere else to turn resort to sleeping in their cars or staying in motels, setting them further behind, McLaughlin added.

One such desperate family in search of shelter recently arrived on the doorstep of Harvest House, pulling up to the nonprofit in a rented U-Haul truck – the two parents and four children living out of the back.

“The kids looked completely shell-shocked,” said Dan Minor, Harvest House’s president and CEO.

However, while caseworkers offered referrals and other resources, the family could not stay there.

The reason: Last year, the Sarasota County Commission slashed funding to the nonprofit’s family emergency homeless shelter – the only one of its kind and scope in the county – forcing it to close and exacerbating the housing crisis for families.

Priced-out parents and kids are still showing up, looking for help, many needing to do so for the first time in their lives.

“I think that all of our ideas around unhoused families are being shattered,” Minor said.

While local school guidance counselors and social workers are seeing more and more two-parent households among homeless families, the largest share by far are single moms, McLaughlin said. Compared to households headed by single dads, it is a population almost twice as likely to be living in poverty or unable to make ends meet in spite of holding down one or more jobs, studies show.

This past year, the number of homeless households headed by single moms that were helped by the Women’s Resource Center skyrocketed from 562 to 896, said chief executive officer Ashley Brown. (The total number of people represented, including moms and kids, went from 1,066 to 1,706.)

Importantly, Brown said, in many cases single moms are escaping the trauma of an abusive relationship, only to be retraumatized by homelessness. In the process, their housing crisis is compounded by a parallel one in childcare as well as a lack of reliable transportation – both of which can force them to miss work, which in turn threatens their housing.

“It’s a catch-22,” Brown said.

Even with help, families struggle to find places to live

That was precisely what happened to Oge.

Having lost her car to Hurricane Ian and getting displaced from the area due to the housing crisis, Oge and the kids were uprooted yet again when Hurricane Milton roared ashore last fall – a spin-off tornado damaging DJ’s school and the nail salon in Fort Myers where Oge worked and where the family slept in the back.

When her stepdad in North Port agreed to temporarily take in Oge and the three kids – DJ and his little sister and brother, ages 4 and 2 – Oge returned to her roots here and right away enrolled DJ at nearby Atwater Elementary. That’s where she learned of Schoolhouse Link.

McLaughlin helped with household items and clothes for the kids – plus an application for a Section 8 housing voucher, which came through weeks later.

“I was so shocked that day I cried,” Oge said. “That is the kind of assistance I needed all this time.”

And yet – even with a housing voucher and childcare assistance through the Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County – Oge could not find openings in either.  

Many rents were too high for the voucher. Other places asked for enormous deposits and proof of income three times the rent. Childcare centers were full, waiting lists were long. But without childcare, how could she work? And without employment, landlords wouldn’t seriously consider her.

“At certain times, I felt like all the odds are against me and like how did I wind up in this situation?” she said. “I was a flight attendant. I’m not someone who woke up someday and wanted to be homeless or didn’t want anything for my life.”

With the clock ticking on the use of the voucher, her stepdad told her early this year they needed to be out soon. Relying on Uber and rides from friends, Oge kept up her frantic search, squeezing in trips to the park so that the kids had some sense of normalcy. She tried to keep a smile on her face but could see the ordeal was taking a toll on them, as well.

Some nights, they needed to split up – Oge and the youngest two crashing with family friends while DJ stayed on the couch at her stepdad’s place to remain close to his school, a common type of separation for homeless families, experts say. Each time, the younger siblings would cry for their big brother.

“Mommy is not leaving you,” Oge would tell DJ. “I’m coming back to see you every day.”

While DJ seemed to take the brief separation in stride, Oge knew he was troubled by the prospect of transferring once more.

She understood. During her own troubled childhood in foster care – attending 13 schools before graduation – her studies had anchored her through disruptive times.

“I didn’t want the same track record for my kids.”

Studies reveal the severe impacts of homelessness on students’ development – putting them at greater risk of truancy, behavior problems, falling behind and dropping out.

“That pushed me even harder,” she said.

‘I just need a chance’

Finally, she had a breakthrough, first with childcare: a former contact in Charlotte County agreed to fill out documents to qualify for Sarasota’s ELC tuition assistance to accommodate Oge’s youngest two children in her home center.

Then, Oge found a rental home in North Port that would take her voucher. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom house was within walking distance of DJ’s school. And it had a back yard.

But there was a catch: this place also required proof of income equal to three times the rent. Oge shared her situation.

“I just need a chance,” she begged the rental management. “I am this close. I just need a chance.”

The leasing company agreed to waive the income requirement thanks to the voucher. But they definitely needed a letter from an employer. They promised to give her time.

With the other pieces of the puzzle falling into place, Oge zeroed in on finding a job – landing one with a mortuary company.

“I was willing to do anything,” she said.

For move-in costs and the deposit, McLaughlin at Schoolhouse Link tapped Season of Sharing, administered by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

In February, after the leasing company gave Oge the green light, she showed the place to the kids.

“This is going to be our new house,” she told DJ and his siblings as they ran overjoyed through the empty rooms.

“Mom, I want to stay in here forever!” DJ called before racing to check out the back yard. “My apple tree is going to go right here!”

DJ, his teacher and his classmates were thrilled to learn he could stay.

Since moving into the house in March, Oge has planted three trees, one for each of her children. She is saving to buy a used car. And planning to go back to school – maybe for psychology or cyber security. Once she’s on her feet, she wants to return the housing voucher as soon as she can so it can help another parent.

She is grateful for the kindness she has encountered along her arduous journey. Given the severity of the crises that working families face, she believes her own outcome would not have been possible without it.

“Somehow, even though there have been a lot of hurdles and difficulties, I have met people who have it in their heart to help.”  

This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at [email protected].