Every day, students and families enter a small building on the Marshfield High School campus. A student might take a quick shower before class in one room. In another area, a family might come in to do free laundry. Staff like Melinda Torres, supervisor of student support services for Coos Bay School District, might be helping an unaccompanied youth without parental support figure out how to sign up for a P.O. Box and bank account so she could get a driver’s license.
The building is the home base for The ARK Project, a Coos Bay School District program that provides basic assistance, advocacy, and essential services to at-risk and unhoused youth and their families throughout the county. The program began in 2008 with funding from the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act subgrant, which requires houseless students to have equal access to education. ARK started with one staff member working out of an office before expanding into its current building in 2021. Many people in Coos County don’t have reliable transportation. Hosting ARK at a school youth attend regularly makes it easier for them to access services.
The need is significant. In Coos County, 44% of households struggle to afford basic necessities, and hundreds of students experience homelessness, with many more families living one missed paycheck away from housing instability. While ARK’s mission is to support students, staff quickly realized that the best way to do that was often to help the entire family. “We can support the student in school, but what is a game changer is making sure those parents feel supported and get their needs met,” Torres said. “They’re the ones who have to figure it out.”
ARK helps families navigate the resources available to them, saving them from spending time they don’t have applying for services they may not qualify for. In one case, Torres learned from a student that their family was struggling to find housing, a situation that was making it difficult for the student to stay in school. ARK helped the family secure transitional housing. After a year, the family had saved enough money to move into an apartment of their own. In the meantime, the children stayed in school and graduated.
Stories like that are part of why the families and students Torres has helped continue to return to ARK, sometimes long after graduation. “We want to be a support where if something goes wrong, they can always come here,” she said.
But maintaining that support has become more difficult as district-wide budget deficits have created a funding gap for the long-running program. A grant from the Roundhouse Foundation supported general operations for the drop-in center as well as the purchase of essential supplies, helping ARK continue providing a place where students and families can get the assistance they need.
Recently, Torres has seen an increase in the number of unaccompanied youth—young people experiencing homelessness without a parent or guardian to support them. For young people without a parent to help them navigate early adulthood, even ordinary tasks can become significant obstacles. “People don’t realize all these steps you take for granted,” Torres said. ARK staff is there to help students navigate those logistics.
ARK wants to make sure they continue getting support after high school. Torres helped one student without family support get into supportive housing. She graduated from high school and enrolled in college. Torres continues to check in with her every other week. Students continue to qualify for ARK’s support until they’re 21. “Just because you graduate, you’re not off our radar,” Torres said.
