FRESNO, Calif. — Veronica Sanchez takes a city bus to pick up her kids from school every day. She can’t use a car because her first one got towed – and she didn’t have the money to take it out – and her second vehicle was totaled.
“We're hoping that we could come up with the money to fix it,” Sanchez said.
But that’s not the only thing she’s learned to go without. Up until a few months ago, her family didn’t have a home, either.
“Five of my children were in the hotel with me and then my other son came with us and a new baby,” Sanchez said. “So we were tight like sardines.”
Sanchez’s family has been homeless since 2018. They’ve bounced from hotels to family members’ houses. But in April, they moved into a three-bedroom apartment in North Fresno with subsidized rent.
“It's something that I've always wanted and I get to finally have,” Sanchez said.
The apartment was offered through a pilot project with her kids’ school district, Fresno Unified School District. The project provides permanent housing for 20 families of students experiencing homelessness.
For many families without a home, school can be an afterthought. That’s why chronic absenteeism is higher and graduation rates are lower among homeless students. But Fresno Unified, California’s third largest school district, has been working to combat this problem.
The housing project is the latest tool the district is using to address homelessness among its students. It’s located at a housing complex converted from a motel called Crossroads Village. The rent for the 20 families is subsidized with $150,000 from the district. The California Teachers Association and the Fresno Housing Authority also offer support. It’s one of only two projects of its kind in the state, the other provided by Los Angeles Unified School District.
Fresno Unified’s efforts to decrease student homelessness appear to be working. Only 1% of Fresno County students were homeless last school year, according to the latest state data.
That’s lower than in previous years and the lowest in the state – even after the statewide homeless rate has surged.
A holistic approach to housing
Fresno Unified’s homeless student services are all a part of a program called Project Access.
The program received significant attention and investment after 2023 union contract negotiations between the district and the Fresno Teachers Association. In the new contract, signed in Nov. 2023, both parties committed $30 million to “whole child supports” for priority areas including homelessness.
That resolution came about, said association President Manuel Bonilla, because educators had been calling attention to homelessness as a significant barrier to education.
The need for more services became especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Tumani Heights.
Heights worked as the foster and homeless liaison at Fresno Unified for more than seven years and is now the director of the foster and homeless youth education department for the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.
She said alleviating homelessness among students is a priority because it commonly results in other issues.
“Just recognizing that if the child's Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are not met, it's very hard for them to be able to function academically or to come to school,” Heights said, referring to a well-known psychological theory regarding social, emotional and physical needs.
Heights was surprised to hear that Fresno County’s student homelessness ranked so low statewide because she thinks the data doesn't tell the whole story.
“Homelessness is a low number, right? But the need is high,” Heights told KVPR. “There's no black and white cookie cutter approach to servicing our families that [are] experiencing homelessness. And they're actually the experts of what they need.”
She said she’s seen two main barriers to overcoming homelessness among families in Fresno County — finding employment and finding housing with an eviction notice on their record.
Those are both things Sanchez struggled with.
“People always say, ‘Okay, go get a job,’” Sanchez said. “I can't get a job unless I have stable housing.”
The district now offers food, clothes, and transportation through Project Access, along with the housing it already provides. It even covered the cost of a prom dress this past spring for Sanchez’s daughter, Kayla Galvan.
The 17-year-old sported a sparkly silver-purple mermaid-style dress. She said she had glitter on her for a month after that, but it was worth it. Now, she’s ordering a class ring with her birthstone — also covered by the district.
“I could look at it 50 years from now and be like, ‘Oh, that's when I graduated. That was a long time ago,’” Galvan told KVPR.
This all transpires for Galvan through a social worker she sees at school. She said the worker makes sure she has everything she needs to feel like she “belongs” at school, whether it’s helping her to play a sport or attend a school event. Social workers also provide emotional support — Galvan said she can talk through issues she’s having at home with the person assigned to her.
Until recently, Fresno Unified provided social workers only to high school or middle schoolers. Then the district hired more for elementary schools. Priscilla Lopez, a social worker for Fresno Unified elementary schools, said this is especially vital for younger kids.
“A lot of times we kind of separate social emotional support and academics, but actually they go hand in hand. When we're able to stabilize our students' emotions or help them stabilize their emotions, then they're able to learn more in the classroom,” Lopez said. “They're able to go back in the classroom and regulate instead of being upset in the classroom with other kiddos or lashing out at other kids or teachers as well.”
Several families told KVPR this support also benefits them at home, because their children are able to communicate better.
Lopez, like Heights, was initially surprised by Fresno County’s low rates of student homelessness. But then she realized she’s seen families under her watch over the last two years come into finding housing. She said that could happen from connecting parents to resources and keeping their children emotionally stable.
“When we support the kiddos at the school, then they kind of are able to focus on getting that stable housing because it's a lot of work, too, to get back on your feet,” Lopez said.
From a hotel room to a home
For the first time in years, Sanchez no longer blows up air mattresses for her children or keeps perishable food in a hotel bath tub.
Life is different now. Her new home has HVAC systems in each room and is fully furnished. She’s hanging up family photos as well as her children’s awards and certificates for achievements like high attendance and honor roll, and her home is already littered with signs that say things like “Home: where family gathers, friends meet and roots grow.”
Aside from the housing situation, she’s taking classes to become a para-professional or to work an office job at the district. She’ll also attend parent-teacher conferences and life skills workshops and make sure her kids maintain high attendance.
It’s all required to stay at the complex, but she said it’s no problem at all. It’s everything she’s ever wanted – a place to call home, at last.
“I have eight kids and when you have that many kids, you don't know if you're doing right by any of them,” Sanchez said, chuckling. “So, to have them all here at the same time…only tears could come out with happiness.”
KVPR's Kerry Klein contributed to this story.
