NYC’s Largest Shelter Provides Homeless Teens With College Tours
Hunter College in NYC has been eager to show the students around and offer them an opportunity to succeed.
This also makes me happy. WIN Shelters, the largest homeless shelter in New York City, has provided homeless teams with help not only to get into high schools but also college.
With a $25,000 grant from AT&T, the shelter has taken a lot of teens on these college tours. From New York Daily News:
Tour chaperone Diana Santos, assistant vice president of supportive services at WIN Shelters, said the trips are a chance for kids to get out of the close quarters they often share with shelter families, and a way to “plant a seed” about applying to college.
One in 10 city students live in a shelter or doubled up with friends or relatives, according to a sobering report from the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness. Losing a home has profound educational effects for students, including forcing families to choose between switching schools or traveling long distances to stay in a familiar school.
And in the midst of that shuffle and adjustment, a complicated and lengthy process like prepping for a college application can be pushed to the back burner, Santos said.
The tours, along with tutoring and social work services WIN provides in shelters, help keep college front and center for the teens.
Jennifer Raab, the president of Hunter College, said she was eager to host a tour after the college enrolled Brianna Watts, a teenager accepted to 12 colleges while living in a WIN shelter.
“We’re so aware of how hard it is for any New York City public school students to think about paying for college, about applying to college,” Raab said. “We’re that much more conscious of how hard it is if you don’t have a stable living situation.”
[Featured image via YouTube]
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