Schools and organizations work to provide educational supports for students experiencing homelessness.
Every Tuesday, Ashlee Johnson takes her 10-year-old daughter, Aerie’Onna, to the Carnegie Library branch near Allegheny Center.
At the library, they meet tutor Kim Lincoln and volunteer Alison Ramirez from the Homeless Children’s Education Fund [HCEF].
On a Tuesday evening in March, Lincoln and Ramirez began their tutoring session with Aerie’Onna by playing a story-building game.
Aerie’Onna started by narrating stories about a shape-shifting superhero, an Egyptian family with magical powers and humans invading another planet. Lincoln and Ramirez chimed in, adding new details to her stories and encouraging Aerie’Onna to use her imagination.
Aerie’Onna is one of nearly 3,000 children and youth in Allegheny County known to be experiencing homelessness and served by the state’s Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness Program.
Housing-insecure students are generally more likely to struggle in school and less likely to graduate. That’s where the mobile tutoring services offered by HCEF come into play. HCEF is one of the few organizations in Pittsburgh that were established to support the educational needs of children experiencing homelessness.
Prioritizing education
At 31, Johnson is a single mother of two, balancing two jobs. She’s experienced unstable housing since November due to issues with a previous landlord, and the family has been staying at a friend’s house on the North Side.
When they first had to move out of their house, Johnson started noticing a rise in Aerie’Onna’s anxiety levels.
“Sometimes she has a hard time focusing or she gets distracted really easily. And I was noticing that when we were making the transition,” said Johnson.
Aerie’Onna Johnson, 10, comments on books as she walks through the stacks in the children’s section at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh-Allegheny on Monday, April 10, 2023, in Central Northside. Aerie’Onna comes to the library after school for tutoring through the Homeless Children’s Education Fund [HCEF], a weekly event she looks forward to. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
This was not the first time Johnson and her family were experiencing homelessness. Johnson said they went through a patch of being unhoused just before Aerie’Onna was born. She said she has always tried to be transparent with her daughter about their living situation.
“Throughout her life, I tried to be very honest with her about what’s going on in our lives,” she said. “And even like in our current situation, I don’t think she fully understands what’s going on. But she does understand that we are in a temporary situation and that we are living with someone else.”
Johnson’s main priority was to make sure Aerie’Onna’s studies did not suffer.
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