There were 1,414 students in the Madison School District identified as homeless over the course of the 2014-15 school year, 5.2 percent of the student body. The number rises each year and is up 89 percent since 2008-09.
By some counts, children are the majority of the city’s homeless, yet they aren’t its typical face. They tend not to live on the streets in public view, although that does happen. Rather, a majority of their families are doubled up with relatives or friends, often in substandard conditions. Or they stay in shelters or motels.
K’won began classes at Hawthorne Elementary on Oct. 20, about seven weeks into the school year. His mother, pregnant at the time with Amir, had brought the family to Madison from Chicago, fleeing violence and drawn to this area’s low unemployment rate.
“They say you can come here and get shelter and help, but I can get that in Chicago,” she said. “What I can’t get in Chicago is a job.”
Within two weeks, she had offers from a fast-food restaurant and a convenience store. She took the latter because it paid more: $9.50 an hour.
Initially, she and K’won stayed with Turner’s aunt, who lives on Madison’s East Side in the Hawthorne attendance area. That’s how K’won came to enroll at the school.