[wvns] TIDAL WAVE OF HOMELESS STUDENTS HITS SCHOOLS

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‘Tidal wave’ of homeless students hits schools

School districts across U.S. struggling to pay for needs of uprooted kids

By Kari Huus

Reporter

msnbc.com

updated 7:20 a.m. ET, Mon., March. 2, 2009

Kari Huus Reporter • Profile • E-mail

OXNARD, Calif. - Nine-year-old Daniel Valdez is absorbed in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” the fictional story of a family shipwrecked on a tropical island. In real life, he and his family also are marooned, but there is little romance in their tale of survival in this seaside town northwest of Los Angeles.

Daniel, his mother and five brothers, ages 1 to 17, live in a garage without heat or running water in a modest, low-lying neighborhood that sits between celebrity-owned mansions in the hills and the Pacific Ocean. Each morning, they arise at 6:30, get dressed and then leave quietly; they return only after dark — a routine born out of the fear that detection could mean the loss of even this humble dwelling.

Daniel and his brothers have been sleeping in the garage for more than a year — members of what school officials and youth advocates say is a rapidly growing legion of homeless youth.

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