{"id":729605,"date":"2023-08-03T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/?p=729605"},"modified":"2023-08-03T13:49:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T18:49:42","slug":"homeless-youth-walk-a-hidden-path-in-rural-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/08\/03\/homeless-youth-walk-a-hidden-path-in-rural-oklahoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless Youth Walk a Hidden Path in Rural Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WOODWARD, Oklahoma \u2014 Anika Drew is drawn to beauty. Her boyfriend said she can stand in a barren field and still point out a pretty flower. Drew dreams of going to beauty school to become a makeup artist and moving to Japan to see the pink cherry blossoms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, the 17-year-old wanders Woodward with her boyfriend. For the past year, they have slept in abandoned trailers and a trashed apartment. They have pitched a tent on the trails behind Woodward High School and couch-surfed at friends\u2019 houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, they made a deal with a local motel owner: Drew would work cleaning rooms and her boyfriend Nicholas Stone, 18, would mow the lawn in exchange for a room at the Wayfarer Inn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a path for a princess,\u201d Drew said, ducking under branches to a spot off the roadside where the couple set up their tent. Neighboring a junkyard filled with piles of rusty cars and strewn tires, the campground where Drew and Stone spent much of their winter was covered in heavy brush, trash and water flooding the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drew and Stone are part of a 29% increase in homeless youth living without a parent or guardian in Oklahoma from 2020 to 2022 \u2014 one of the largest increases in the nation, according to the 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report<\/a>. One professor studying the issue estimated there could be more than 120,000 homeless youth in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anika Drew walks through the brush to show where she and Nicholas Stone stayed while living in their tent in Woodward, Oklahoma. (Yasmeen Saadi\/Oklahoma Watch)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Living in Woodward, a rural town of fewer than 12,000 in northwest Oklahoma, Drew and Stone have less access to shelters and services. In rural areas, schools <\/strong>are often a primary means of support, where students have access to teachers and trusted adults. Each school district also has a homeless liaison. Several rural district liaisons said that they have helped students get jobs and taken students to food banks. However, as staff members tasked with identifying and meeting the needs of, at times, hundreds of students, their jobs come with limitations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help keep track of homeless students, a new state law<\/a> aims to improve how districts identify and count students. Liaisons said by lessening absences and making it to graduation, homeless students have a better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drew will be a sophomore and Stone will be a senior when school starts next month. They said they missed most of the last school year after being kicked out for low grades and missing credits, but that they hope to return to the high school\u2019s alternative education program. For school-age youth not attending school, like Drew and Stone, and children younger than school age, not much data exists \u2014 causing youth homelessness to often go severely underreported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on a homeless resource map<\/a> created by University of Oklahoma researchers, 22 rural Oklahoma counties lack any homeless shelter or resource center, and many others only have one or two, miles from other corners of the county. In Woodward, there are two: one available at night and another, The Day Center, available from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overnight shelter has eight individual rooms and one family room, but Drew and Stone\u2019s 13 pets \u2014 their cat, Mittens, their two dogs, Narnia and Chubz and Narnia\u2019s 10 pups, prevent them from being able to stay there. Instead, this summer they often walked to The Day Center, where showers, a kitchen, couches and a job board are available during business hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanna Gonser runs The Day Center. Since opening in April 2022, Gonser said the center has served 156 clients with about seven people coming in each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonser said she rarely encounters homeless youth because many are so-called couch homeless and doubled up with another family. That form of homelessness is twice as common for youth in rural communities, according to a University of Chicago study<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on data collected by Woodward Public Schools, however, Drew and Stone are not alone. The district identified 113 homeless students during the 2018-2019 school year, the most recent year available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since leaving their families last August due to what they described as unstable and abusive households, Drew and Stone said they have not met another homeless teen. That may be partly due to their absence from school, but for all they know, they said, they\u2019re the only ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don’t want a lot of people to know that they’re in that situation,\u201d Gonser said. \u201cIt’s embarrassing to them, so they don’t go out and look for others that are in the same situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drew said it\u2019s difficult for her to compare her situation to how she sees others her age living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorthless,\u201d Drew said. \u201cIt makes me feel worthless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n