More homeless students in Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - It's 4:15 p.m. on a Tuesday, and a 10-year-old boy is getting back from school. But he doesn't arrive on a school bus and he does not walk into a house or an apartment.

A cab brings him from school -- to a homeless shelter.

There is federal money for that transportation, along with a federal law requiring districts to continue to teach students who become homeless.

And more Michigan students are considered homeless this year than last: districts around the state are seeing a 35 percent increase on average. For Grand Rapids Public Schools, it's a 24 percent increase. Other states are seeing a year-to-year spike as well: a 28 percent increase in Arizona, a 20 percent jump in California and a 19 increase in Florida.

The 10-year-old's family has been staying with Interfaith Hospitality Network in Grand Rapids for three weeks now. His younger brother doesn't realize what's happening. The 10-year-old doesn't understand it all either.

But getting in a cab by himself and riding to school in Kentwood isn't easy on him.

"He wasn't good with it at all," his mother, Terri, told 24 Hour News 8. "We have to fight with him almost every morning to go. But he does it. Got to do what you got to do."

His family was pushed down this road by the tough economy – a job lost in the homebuilding industry, and then an apartment lost to foreclosure.

"The bank took it over. They were going to bulldoze it down so they paid everyone to leave," his father, Kevin, said.

They all moved in with family in Kentwood, only to lose that home, too.

Now, like thousands of other school kids, this fourth grader is now homeless. The children of another woman living at Interfaith are now a part of that number too. They are homeless for the second time this year.

"She cried a lot, yes," their mother, Regine, said. "She cried this time, too."

There is good news for the 10-year-old and his family: dad does have a job. And now Interfaith has helped them find a permanent home.

"We should be ready to move in by the end of the week," Kevin said.

It will mark a return to the kind of life every 10-year-old should be able to live. But now they know firsthand it's a life countless other 10-year-olds don't get to live.