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| SEA students Hira, Blue, Samantha, and Stazzi with SEA program director Anthon Smith, right. SEA began in 2002. Photo by Andrew Clark. |
There are three of them, and they get onto the number 48 with a smugness on their pimpled faces that might be annoying, except for that they’re trying so hard, so obviously. They suckle ostentatiously and for no apparent reason bright pink pacifiers, which strikes me as unintentionally ironic: their clothes – in spite of their best efforts – still show little rolls and pinches of baby fat. A couple minutes later, after the three have collapsed, giggling, into the great accordion-core of the bus, an argument ensues about what the date is. And, since they’re at that age when you only really sweat the small stuff, it lasts until I get off at my stop.
Their arrival on my bus is strangely well-timed: I’m on my way to Seattle Education Access (SEA), a local nonprofit that provides higher education opportunities to poor and homeless young people in and around Seattle. As I walk to the hole-in-the-wall offices to meet Anthon Smith and Polly Trout, SEA’s program- and executive directors, I’m remembering a little too well the often painful awkwardness of adolescence. I can hardly imagine what it must be like to grow up – and to thrive – on the streets.
SEA’s office isn’t like any other social service agency I’ve ever seen. It reminds me of my fifth grade classroom more than anything, actually, bright and open with simple furniture and cheerfully peeling paint on the walls. When Trout, Smith, and I have made our introductions, the two of them sprawl out on overstuffed chairs, nodding agreeably to my questions, their faces bright in the sun from the room’s broad windows.
In a word, it feels relaxed. And that’s just how they like it.
Says Trout, who founded SEA in 2002, the organization has no “working model,” no plan of action universally applicable to the 150-plus young adults who walk through their door every year.
“Before anything,
a student has to have a vision of who they are and where they want to go,” says SEA founder Polly Trout. “And that’s not possible if they’re focused on survival.”
“When I meet a student,” says Trout, “I don’t have any ideas for them.” Hardened by time on the street, most youth will reject most “advice” out of hand. And so, “paradoxically, the most powerful thing you can do is to meet someone where they’re at... and that means no nagging, no blaming, and no shame.”
Guiding a student from off the streets and into the classroom is as complex as those conditions that result in homelessness.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, nearly 1.35 million children are homeless in the United States. Of those, nearly 43 percent have suffered physical abuse, 1 in 4 sexually. A further 44 percent of homeless youth report leaving parents who abuse alcohol or drugs. Sexual orientation is also often a source of conflict – last year, almost 40 percent of SEA’s clients identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer.
But not all youth homelessness stems from problems within families: many young adults become homeless after exiting the juvenile justice- or foster care systems. One CPS study in California indicated that nearly 65 percent of youth exiting foster care had no place to stay once they did.
So it’s not so simple as asking Smith and Trout what it is they do. The short answer is that it depends.
I met SEA student Sewit for the first time in January. She’s tall and thin as a rail, and though I wish I had a more original word for describing her eyes, piercing is the only word that fits.
Like nearly 20 percent of SEA’s students, Sewit immigrated from another country. Says SEA’s Smith, many become homeless after fleeing their countries of origin, while still others are the children of deportees. They occupy a strange position: like their parents, they can be deported and arrested, but unlike their parents, their status is not specified as “illegal.”
“Technically, they don’t exist,” says Smith. “You can’t apply for benefits, state or federal. You can’t apply for financial aid or scholarships.” And it goes without saying, he adds, that you can’t work.
Sewit was born and raised in Italy, where her parents had moved after fleeing violence in their native Eritrea. In January, she was looking to move out of her group home (“It’s just kind of ghetto,” she said insouciantly). A strong student who speaks fluent Italian and English, Sewit came to the U.S. at 14 in order to live with an aunt in North Carolina. A hard enough transition – but when Sewit’s aunt died of cancer, she found herself with a one-way ticket to Seattle, where she was to stay with family friends.
And these friends just didn’t have room: within a week of her arrival, Sewit was dropped off at the door of a group home.
But with the help of Smith and Trout, Sewit discovered a little-known inconsistency in immigration law. Undocumented residents under 18 can apply for “Special Juvenile Immigration Status.” This “fast-track” to citizenship, though it took nearly two years to obtain, allowed Sewit to get an SSN and file for a green card.
“Before anything, a student has to have a vision of who they are and where they want to go,” says Polly Trout. “And that’s not possible if they’re focused on survival.” SEA provides students like Sewit with the support to allow them not only to pursue an education, but the peace of mind to define what that education will be.
A week ago, Sewit had moved out of her group home and was about to wrap up an associate’s degree. Scholarships from the SEA will help her continue her education at a local university – but before then she’s visiting her folks in Milan.
Sewit is somewhat unique, though; most SEA students end up on the streets due to trauma at home.
“There’s a lot of pain on the streets,” says Heather Rastovac, who left home at 14 because of her mom’s then-boyfriend. Within months of running away, Rastovac began to feel like reintegration would never be possible. For the next 10 years, she traveled the U.S., Mexico, and the Mediterranean, surviving on money from farm work and the fat of the land.
To see her now, a college graduate and soon-to-be candidate for a PhD in performance studies at UC Berkeley, it’s hard to believe that she was once – well – a gutter punk. It was her travels abroad, seeing humanity as a welcome guest, that restored a lost faith.
“In Mexico,” she remembers, “you can hang out in the town plaza all day and socialize. In the U.S., you can get arrested for doing that – and I have!”
At 24, she returned to the U.S. (sans the chip on her shoulder and with a hunger for learning). She went at school with a vengeance, assisted along the way by Polly Trout, who steered her through the murky waters of financial aid.
And as Rastovac talks, I’m struck with the sense that she grew because she wanted to. And that, as admirable as its work is, SEA is nothing without the strange and beautiful permutations of the human soul.
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