Homeless student eligibility
Our Foundation is building our eligibility questions and we have a new scholarship opportunity for homeless students. Is there a best way to ask this question? Does anyone have experience with these types of scholarships?
Comments
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Hi. We work with a nonprofit that supports homeless students, and some of the staff state it is preferable to use "youth experiencing homelessness" vs. "homeless youth," the idea being that being homeless is something they are experiencing, not what they are.
You might also want to have checkboxes to paraphrase parts of the McKinney-Vento Definition of Homeless -
Are you -
sharing someone else's home due to loss of housing, economic hardship, etc.?
living in a hotel/motel, trailer park, or camping ground due to lack of alternative accommodations?
living in an emergency or transitional shelter?
spending the night in a place not designed for regular sleeping accommodation such as a car, public space, abandoned building, substandard housing, or bus or train station?
Good luck! Good for you for offering this scholarship!
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Thank you for your help!
These are amazing ideas. We have usually about five to ten kids who apply for our scholarships who are homeless or living in a homeless youth shelter. The number seems to be only increasing these days. :(
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Great question and I commend you for being so thoughtful. I like and appreciate Lori's comments. Our most connected community partners refer to people with housing insecurity as unhoused neighbors. Perhaps "students facing housing insecurity" or students who are unhoused", with the emphasis on the person first, not the condition.
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