Many students are who go to college are homeless and have children, making it difficult to stay focused on school and graduate.

This might change soon with a new program being tested out a few select colleges. The Education to Employment program is for homeless students that are going to school and have children.

The program is run by Metropolitan Development Council or MDC. MDC offers many resources to students who sign up with them. They offer financial aid, help finding shelter, and even help with budgeting. They try to help them keep going to college so they can graduate but they are limited to 30 students.

Students must be homeless to qualify for the full benefits of the program. They accept situations such as; a student living in their car, staying with friends, moving to house to house, or someone who could be homeless soon by eviction.

Students don’t even need to have the children living with them. They could be in foster care, as long as the children are in a program that will eventually unite them with their parent.

Though the program isn’t education oriented in their services, they ultimately help keep students in college. MDC provides employment resources, transportation help and aid the students in obtaining community resources. MDC feels that this approach helps students focus on school. That freed focus would be put to their education.

Afterward this would help them graduate and in the future help keep the student and child in a stable environment.

“Students have come to me with issues and I’ve been able to help them through this program. I’ve been able to leverage Pierce College’s resources and help them get out of the situations they’ve been in and get stable.” said Shulkind, the Education to Employment Navigator.

Students who want to apply or just get some help can go to the Workforce office in Cascade building across of the help desk. They can also contact Joshua Shulkind at [email protected].