The official Dancing Deer Baking Company Blog

My children are 15 and 19 years old and yet I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the logistics and social implications of being a teenager in the homeless system even though I have been in countless shelters and met hundreds of homeless families. Most often I’m meeting with mothers of small children. When I started a conversation with a beautiful young woman named Shiday. I wouldn’t have guessed that she was only 16, not just because she is mature in her appearance but also because she was so beautifully spoken, articulate and wise about her situation. It took me a bit of work to get her to respond to me. She was pensive and thoughtful. She is an Honor roll student as is her very bright younger sister. She sings in the choir. I didn’t get the details on their brother. They are living with their mother who has a serious medical disability and is unable to work. Their extended family can’t take them in. They’ve been homeless for 3 weeks.

Here are some things to think about. She can’t spend the night at a friend’s house. She has to be back to the shelter at the curfew hour of 3:30 so she can’t be involved in after school programs. The residents are not allowed to have cell phones. There are teenage boys in the same room with her every night. Everyone knows when she has her period because people see what she takes out of her bag. The room is totally open and each person has a cot and a small space on the floor for their personal possessions. She cannot have any social life with other kids at school. The lights go off at 9. Children must be in bed at 8:30 (at 16 she is categorized as a child). She is here in XXX this week. She will move again next week. She has to be up at 5:00 AM and is bussed back to her school. It’s very hard to do homework because there is really no quiet space in the shelter. For example, when we arrived there were volunteers putting on a clown show for the little children. It was delightful and loud. She is worried about keeping up her grade point average. We didn’t get to discuss whether her friends at school know where she is living.

Each wall of her house displayed the name her immediate family member. Roof: Shiday, Roof: Her mother Jackie. Side wall: Her brother Shaquille Opposite Side wall: Her sister Dominique. End wall, the name of a boy in the shelter who likes her (she explained to me that he was too young for her and she put his name there just to make him feel good). Other End wall: Grandmother and Jesus.