Homeschooling and Homelessness

Last year, as I wrote about our (ie., MY 😅) ambitions for a trilingual education, our family was actually homeless. Now, homelessness isn't always the picture of a single individual with a shopping cart, or begging at an intersection. Over 30% of the homeless are families, according to US statistics. Most of these families are pretty well hidden. They may be living in housing with other families, in a shelter, or in a cheap hotel like we were. Both my husband and I were still working; we just didn't have a place to live because we were pushed out so the landlord could upgrade and jack up the rent. 

In the middle of that, we tried to keep up a homeschool routine - it was the only thing normal at the time. We spent a lot of time out of the hotel room though, because it was not a great environment. One night, we stayed in a borrowed tent on a friend's land because the hotel was booked that night. We looked at it as a camping trip. A very high-tech camping trip because my friend has wi-fi that I hooked up to, and we watched Netflix on my laptop!  It was God's providence for us not to be at the hotel that night, because that was the day one of the people we knew at the hotel got shot.

How did we homeschool in the upheaval? 

Since it was summer, it was going to be homeschool-light anyway. But, since our lives were uprooted, I wanted to keep some aspects as normal as possible. Gymnast continued taking Lingobus classes, and we even still had Mandarin Morning because we had brought our own Roku TV to the room, so had Netflix. We would also read and do some math. Much of this was done at the library or park. After all, it was summer! At the park, we could do some schoolwork, play, eat lunch, and stay to play some more.

Preparation: I knew we were all going to be in one room (with our cat and rabbit, the dogs were housed on a friend's property), so didn't want to bring a lot of stuff. 

• Chinese was all online or on the TV. 
• Math only needed Prodigy and a whiteboard. I needed the whiteboard to teach anyway, so that was nothing extra. 
• Reading - to be honest, I don't remember what I read, but I think there was a chapter book or two that I was finishing up, and the rest was from the library. Oh, there was one reading book I was going through with her... because dyslexia. We mostly read in English.
• I packed most of our schoolbooks together in one or two labeled boxes, and made sure they were at the front of one of the storage rooms for easy access. 

Homeschool Conferences

We also attended two conferences at this time. They were both already paid for - one was right before our move, and the other was one month after. We received notification of apartment upgrades two days before we were to leave for our 2-week out-of-town trip to my parents and the first homeschool conference. This would give us twenty days to move 18 years of life once we got back. I did a lot of planning on our trip. We still had fun at the Texas conference though! It was a really nice venue.

Since we knew we'd be moving out of our place once we got back to New Mexico, it was easy to just keep the conference things packed together, placed near the front of a storage room, and be ready for the next conference. 

Books

We're homeschoolers. 'Nuff said.

I labeled everything (so I thought...). Essentials that weren't immediate necessities, books I'd like to get to within a couple of months (we weren't sure how long we'd be homeless), books to read...eventually, books for teaching, books for future curriculum, book favorites, books we wouldn't need for a while. Half of one of the storage rooms is just boxes of books. And I found that some of them weren't actually labeled... 😓 I think that happened as we were running out of time to get out. Please label all your book boxes. 

Life

I knew we would be staying at the hotel for at least a few weeks, even though we didn't know exactly how long it would be. Savings were finite, but we were also still working (although my summers are very light). We certainly weren't gong to be eating out every day, so I told my husband that whatever he does, do NOT pack the Instant Pot (guess what I had to rescue out of the storage room...😑). That became our best friend. Breakfast and dinner were made in the IP, and sometimes shared with some of the homeless near us. We couldn't have many leftovers because there was only a small dorm fridge - and cockroaches... (I did say this wasn't the greatest environment.)

I even had a contingency plan just in case we wound up living out of our cars. Thankfully, it didn't get to that point. The Lord provided just as we were at the end of our savings.

Although we weren't in the best situation to homeschool, we had some advantages.

• We were not thrust into homeschooling unexpectedly. Many homeless families that homeschool were already homeless and forced to "homeschool" during the pandemic. I've been homeschooling for over 16 years now, so have an idea of what to expect, what we need, and how to obtain resources.
• My husband and I had been homeless before. Okay, there's nothing advantageous about not having a place to live. My husband and I met at a homeless shelter over 20 years ago as single individuals. But, having been in at that place before, we knew of resources and how to navigate the system. It didn't take away the devastation and feelings of depression of losing our home of 18 years, but it helped to know what to expect.
• We had some savings stashed away. If not, we would have had to buy a tent and probably stay in the national forest or a friend's property. With some savings, we still had a roof over our heads, access to electricity (I work from my computer), and a bathroom. 
• It was temporary. Through word of mouth and the homeschool group, we were able to find a place within our means in 3 months. We met families that had been homeless for over a year at the hotel. These were not the chronic homeless (that's a whole other post!), but families trying to get back on their feet.

All in all, it was possible to still homeschool, even in our transitory state. It wasn't ideal, but it provided a stable routine to help things feel more normal in the middle of the chaos.