Dallas Church Opens Drop-In Center For Homeless High School Students
KERA News –KERA shined a spotlight on homeless students and the adults helping them last spring in the American Graduate series “Homeless in High School.” Much of the action took place at North Dallas High, which has one of the highest homeless student populations in North Texas.
A new after-school drop-in center for those kids has just opened — in a church across the street.
It’s called Incarnation House — after the Episcopal parish where it’s housed, the Church of the Incarnation. Teresa Keenan, the executive director, gave a tour on a recent morning.
This neighborhood, near Central Expressway and Haskell Avenue, is decidedly mixed: Uptown high-rises and cafes thrive just a few blocks from one of the city’s centers of homelessness.
Keenan says these kids need help.
“The whole idea is that these kids end up with a living-wage job,” she says. “Whether it’s vocational, whether it’s getting through college. It’s being able to break that cycle of poverty that is going to put them homeless maybe for the rest of their lives.”
Volunteers at the church started helping North Dallas High four years ago. One morning a week, they would take breakfast to the school’s homeless kids before class. They’re still involved with the school’s drop-in center. Only now, the church offers afterschool help four days a week.
