Syracuse group helps college students with nowhere to live during summer break.
Kendra Selmon, 23, of Syracuse (foreground) is living with several other students at Le Moyne College. On Point for College, a program which helps young people from low income families attend college, found some students don't have a place to live when they come home for the summer. Selmon's roommates are Elizabeth Lomeringole, 22, (far left) and Christine Bosco, 21, both of Syracuse.In many respects, Kendra Selmon is a typical college student.
She attends Genesee Community College in Batavia. She dreams of becoming a doctor. She likes to watch TV and surf the Internet in her free time.
But unlike most college students, Selmon has no home to return to during summer vacation.
She is one of 15 homeless college students living this summer in student housing at Le Moyne College. On Point for College lined up the housing for them. That Syracuse nonprofit is helping more than 3,000 other disadvantaged young people get into college, stay in college and succeed after graduation.
Selmon, 23, was living in the Salvation Army women’s shelter last year when she heard about On Point. She called the agency and within a month she was out of the shelter and enrolled in college.
“I thought I was always going to be homeless, that little girl who would never go back to school,” Selmon said. “They (On Point) made it happen.”
On Point helps low-income inner-city youths fill out college application forms, find financial aid and get the resources they need — everything from rides to school to sheets, towels, alarm clocks, clothing, backpacks and other supplies — to survive in school. Its mission is to eliminate economic, academic and other barriers that put college off limits to many young people.
On Point counsels students, matches them with mentors, provides grants for textbooks and other fees and helps them find jobs and internships.
Most of its students start out in two-year schools. On Point students in four-year schools have an 87 percent retention rate. The nonprofit is funded through private donations and grants. It has a staff of 13 employees and 160 volunteers.
Ginny Donohue started the organization out of the trunk of her car in 1999. That first year she helped 16 young people get into college. When they come home for the summer, some of them had no place to stay, a problem Donohue had not anticipated. Some ended up living in the shelter at the Rescue Mission.
Donohue, a Le Moyne graduate, contacted her alma mater, explained her dilemma and the college agreed to let the homeless students stay in campus housing for free over the summer. Since then, On Point has been sending about 15 homeless students to Le Moyne every summer.
Mark Godleski, director of residence life at the Catholic Jesuit college, said Le Moyne helps out because its mission of service to others is consistent with On Point’s. “Ginny walks the walk and talks the talk,” Godleski said. “That’s what we teach here at the school.”
Syracuse University also provided summer housing in 2008 when On Point had 24 homeless students.
About 20 percent of On Point students are not living with a parent. Some students’ parents are in jail. Others may have been living with a grandparent who got sick and ended up in a nursing home. Some On Point students raised in foster homes have nowhere to go when they turn 21. Others are separated from their families.
“Some of the kids are in horrific situations where they are forced to go home to live with a parent who’s an alcoholic or abusive,” Donohue said.
These and other circumstances lead to homelessness.
“If somebody has no family to back them up, they’ve got absolutely no safety net under them and they are so vulnerable,” Donohue said. “They are just one prescription, one phone call, one bus ride away from dropping out of college, because they’ve got no safety net. We try to be the safety net for them.”
One On Point student lived during the summer with his brothers who were gang members. Their home was a frequent target of gunfire, she said.
“I asked him to live at Le Moyne because I didn’t want him to die,” Donohue said. After moving there, the young man told Donohue he was thrilled to be living in a place “where he couldn’t hear any bad things going on.”
Kendra Selmon grew up in Auburn. She lived in foster care when she was young, then stayed with an aunt. Selmon said she lived briefly with her father in Syracuse in 2008, but that didn’t work out and she ended up homeless. Before moving to Syracuse, she dropped out of Cayuga Community College after three semesters.
In order to qualify for summer housing at Le Moyne, the homeless students must be on track academically and be on their best behavior. They also must have a summer job or be taking summer classes. Selmon, for example, is taking a math class this summer at Onondaga Community College. The students are not allowed to have visitors at Le Moyne.
Kendra Selmon, of Syracuse, chats with a friend before the start of her algebra class on a recent Tuesday night at Onondaga Community College. The SUNY Geneseo student is part of the On Point for College program, which helps young people from low-income families attend college. She commutes to the evening course from Le Moyne College, where she is living for the summer.Le Moyne does not feed the students. On Point gives each student $40 and some bus tokens when they move into the campus apartments at Le Moyne. The students stock their kitchens with food from the Food Bank of Central New York and are responsible for their own meals.
Finding a place for homeless students to stay over the Christmas vacation is even trickier, Donohue said. Le Moyne is not an option because its own students don’t move their possessions out of campus housing over the semester break.
“Some of the students make friends with other kids at school and they will go home with them,” said Sam Rowser, On Point’s program director.
Donohue said she and other On Point representatives have been working to make colleges more aware of the homelessness issue and urging them to let homeless students stay in campus housing over the Christmas break. Genesee Community College and some other schools have agreed to do that.
Some On Point volunteers who serve as mentors also open their homes to students who need places to stay.
At Le Moyne, Selmon lives with three other female homeless students in an apartment. One goes to SU and the other two attend State University at Buffalo.
When she finishes at Genesee, Selmon wants to transfer to Adelphi College on Long Island.
Not having a regular home to return to this summer like other students did not make Selmon sad.
“I don’t think of it like that. I think of it like, I still have a place to go,” she said. “Ever since I found On Point for College when I was living in the shelter, I’ve been doing fine.”
James T. Mulder can be reached at 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com.