A One-Woman Rescue Squad for Homeless Students

“The truth that there’s this cadre of liaisons who’re dedicated to this system has pushed faculties to pay extra consideration to homeless youngsters,” stated Maria Foscarinis, a longtime housing advocate who lobbied for the 1987 regulation.

Whereas solely about 57 % of homeless youngsters have been enrolled at school when the regulation handed, the share quickly rose to 87 %.

Nonetheless, homeless college students do worse at school than different poor college students, and their numbers have roughly doubled over the previous 15 years. Authorities figures from 2017 confirmed that 13 % of scholars have been homeless in New York and Santa Ana, Calif., the massive cities with the very best charges. Nationwide, almost 80 % of homeless college students are briefly residing with associates or kinfolk, with the remaining in shelters, motels, tents or vehicles.

Ms. Mercado’s work is emblematic of this system’s enlargement of providers and has attracted broad help in Bastrop County, a area with conservative leanings. She has supplemented modest McKinney-Vento support — previous grants of $60,000 a yr offered about $80 for every pupil she serves — with different federal funds and personal donations.

Whereas some liaisons battle to get high-level help, Ms. Mercado lauds the district’s leaders for empowering the work, they usually laud her. “When you’ve got somebody who’s so dedicated to doing what’s finest for college students, it makes it a better determination” to offer funding, stated Barry Edwards, the Bastrop superintendent.

Racks of donated sneakers and garments fill a classroom renovated by the Rotary Membership, and personal donors cowl actions that federal guidelines preclude, together with an annual restaurant meal the place college students apply eating etiquette. Nonetheless, Ms. Mercado typically spends her personal cash on meals, blankets, caps and robes, fuel playing cards and beds, and it took an older colleague to induce her to let go on the finish of the day.

“Once I first began this job, I’d get very overwhelmed since you see a lot trauma, a lot ache,” she stated. “Now I’ll say, ‘God, you’ve received the wheel — within the morning I’ll be right here once more.’”