"The more it went on, the worse I felt," said the 18-year-old, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she didn't want her classmates to know her family's troubled history.
"I'd come to school and be like, 'I don't know why I'm here," she said. "Then I'd be home and I'd be like,
'I really don't want to be here either.'"
Many public school students with similarly chaotic personal lives could soon benefit from an approach that's more often reserved for the well-to-do: boarding school.
Chicago school officials are asking for proposals to run such schools. They admit the idea poses big challenges, not the least of which is the high cost and opposition from some homeless advocates.
"The idea of having a stable home situation is ideal. If that's not the case, that shouldn't preclude you from being able to focus in school," said Josh Edelman, head of the office of new schools in the nation's third-largest school system.
The student who requested anonymity will graduate next month and plans to attend college. She said the city's plan would help some students get "out of a situation that's hurting them," but that others would be better off with their families.
"In situations where things are hard, their parents may be the thing that helps them keep it together," she said.
Residential public schools are usually academies that specialize in math and science, although there are several that aim to help children from low-income neighborhoods succeed.
Chicago serves about 10,000 homeless students a year. Nationwide, more than 907,000 students were homeless in 2005-06, according to government statistics believed elevated during that period by young victims of hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
The cost of housing students deterred a similar effort in Chicago in the 1990s and remains a problem this time around as well. The school system spends about $7,350 per student each year on pupils in grades 6 through 12; residential schools can cost between $30,000 and $50,000 per pupil, according to school officials.
What's more, homeless advocates say they fear students would be stigmatized or isolated, and worry about separating children from their families.
"Kids are deeply connected to their families, and while there is bad in some situations, there's also a lot of connectedness and good," said Rene Heybach, director of the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. "You have to be really cautious when you begin these public enterprises that have the potential to drive a wedge."
Heybach also questioned spending upward of $30,000 per pupil to house a small number of students instead of, for example, using the money for transportation that could help many more homeless children.
She echoed a concern she said she's heard from others: "The Chicago Public Schools has a lot of trouble just operating quality schools. Now they're launching into housing?"
