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Head Start Rule Changes Would Slash Enrollment of Homeless Children

Head Start currently mandates that programs prioritize enrolling children in homeless families. The Trump administration’s proposed rule change would completely undo that.

Children enrolled at the Sunset Park Early Childhood Development Center in Brooklyn, funded through the Head Start program.

Four times a week, Millicah Wanjiru brings her three-month-old twins to the Denise Louie Education Center in Seattle, Washington. Wanjiru hasn’t had a home of her own for three years; when she was six months pregnant, she started staying at an emergency shelter for women and children called Mary’s Place. The one-hour Denise Louie parenting classes for her and other Mary’s Place residents, funded through an Early Head Start grant, always begin with parents introducing themselves with a song. Then the babies do tummy time and Wanjiru gets feedback from the home visitors leading the class on how their development is progressing. Her babies are growing fast: both of them can already roll over. When they do, the group of parents and teachers clap and cheer.

The babies get hearing tests and vaccinations, and the nurses help parents talk through questions to ask when they visit the pediatrician. Once, one of the twins had a lot of mucus in her eyes and Wanjiru feared that she was going blind; a nurse at the class advised putting breast milk on it and it cleared up “like magic,” she said. She also gets diapers, formula, and snacks when she attends.

Trump’s Deregulation of Head Start Would Lead to Bigger Class Sizes, Lower Quality Bryce Covert

Trump’s Deregulation of Head Start Would Lead to Bigger Class Sizes, Lower Quality

A New Trump Rule Would Lower Standards at Head Start and Exclude Immigrants From the Program Bryce Covert

A New Trump Rule Would Lower Standards at Head Start and Exclude Immigrants From the Program

For Wanjiru, who suffered trauma while living on the streets, the class “helps us with routine, it’s like normalcy,” she said. She’s also getting parenting guidance, help with how to talk to her babies, how to soothe them when they cry, and, equally important, other people to talk to as she navigates parenting. The program gives her toys and books to read to her babies. She last had a baby 15 years ago, when she was a teenager, so she feels like she’s starting all over. Wanjiru is now trying to secure a room in a transitional housing complex, and the class has promised to follow her there with home visits; it will serve her until her children turn 3 and can enroll in a Head Start classroom.

“It’s wonderful,” Wanjiru said. “I hope this program never ends.”

But this program is indeed at risk of ending. The Trump administration recently proposed a rule that, if finalized, would erase a huge number of standards and rules that guide the quality and services offered in Early Head Start and Head Start, the free, federal preschool program for low-income children. Among what’s lost are important guidelines that ease eligibility and paperwork for homeless families like Wanjiru’s, which make sure they can enroll and benefit. If the rule is finalized, Denise Louise may no longer be able to partner with Mary’s Place to offer services for homeless parents like Wanjiru through Early Head Start, said Linda Mitchell, chief government affairs officer at Mary’s Place. All told, the administration’s changes make it much less likely that Head Start will continue serving the more than 60,000 homeless children who are currently enrolled.

When Congress reauthorized the Head Start Act in 2007, it included a mandate that programs around the country prioritize enrolling children in families who are experiencing homelessness. But it said that the details of how programs should do that would be spelled out in standards developed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Those........

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