School district offers washers, dryers and a food pantry to combat homeless crisis

Ravenswood City School District headquarters at 2120 Euclid Ave. in East Palo Alto
Ravenswood City School District headquarters at 2120 Euclid Ave. in East Palo Alto

By the Daily Post staff

While a San Francisco County supervisor is working on a plan to house homeless families in a school gym at night, the Ravenswood City School District, which serves East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, is going a different route.

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission, is spearheading a plan for 20 families to stay overnight in two of Buena Vista Horace Mann’s gyms, the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday (April 12).

The Ravenswood School District says 44% of its 2,682 students are homeless.

Ravenswood is working on ways to address their needs, Superintendent Gloria Hernandez-Goff said.

The district is working with the shelter, LifeMoves, to ensure that local families have priority placement.

The district has opened a food pantry at the central office and it is running a program three Saturdays a month where more than 3,500 people are given bags of groceries, Hernandez-Goff said.

The district has also installed washers and dryers at four schools.

6 Comments

  1. 44% seems a bit high to me. What do they classify as homeless and has an unbiased 3rd party confirmed these statistics? Given the current administration at Ravenswood School districts I would not believe a thing coming out of their mouths.

  2. a Homeless rate of their students of 44% seems a bit high to me. What do they classify as homeless and has an unbiased 3rd party confirmed these statistics? Given the current administration at Ravenswood School districts I would not believe a thing coming out of their mouths.

  3. Those washers and dryers haven’t been used since they were installed months ago. No one got the proper permits to operate them.

    Homelessness is counted as students living in shelters, cars, or “doubled up” living with other family members.

  4. Ravenswood does not have firm numbers on the actual numbers of homeless kids in the district. The only data point they have is a one page form filled out at the beginning of the year, and counts people living with non-parent family members as “homeless.” Thus, if mom and a kid live with grandma and grandpa, they are considered “homeless” even if they have a great living situation. Ravenswood is encouraged to raise the number of “homeless” students because they get additional funds by the state funding formula for “homeless” students. This is not to deny that there is poverty in the Ravenswood School district, but the actual number has been grossly exaggerated to increase funding.

  5. Jajaja washers dryers no body use because they don’t get
    Permit
    Food program is free and avoluntary program but
    She pay 3 people to work on food program what
    Money she use to pay her husband and friends to work in the program when a program is free an VOLUNTARY she waste the money for ours kids education in pays for her family .
    There is like 8 foods programs in EPA is not just her food program don’t waste the money in that why you don’t fix
    The roof on Belle haven there is 2 big holes in the roof failing in ours kids head fix that don’t use the money for your family use the money for important things no more lies

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