A first-in-the-nation program that connects families with young children to affordable housing in Connecticut is growing.

The Head Start on Housing program is administering an additional 35 state-funded housing vouchers for low-income families enrolled in Head Start, a federally funded preschool program that promotes school readiness for children up to age 5.

“Get your son out of this school.”

That’s the message Yanira Rios received seven years ago from her son’s kindergarten teacher shortly after moving to Bridgeport, the only community in the region where she could afford an apartment. Her son had learned to read in preschool before leaving Shelton, and now Rios was being told that his teacher needed to focus on his classmates, who were far behind him academically.

“It was so discouraging to have a teacher beg you, ‘You have to figure it out. You have to get your kid out of here, because at the end of the year he’s going to be behind,'” said Rios.

Segregation Is Preventable. Congress Just Isn’t Trying.
Again and again, federal efforts to promote integration have been whittled down almost to nothing.

AMA calls for alleviating racial housing segregation, Medical Press, August 2, 2018, available here

‘When I See Racial Disparities, I See Racism.’ Discussing Race, Gender and Mobility, Claire Cain Miller, Emily Badger, Noelle Hurd, Ibram X. Kendi, Nathaniel Hendren, Raj Chetty, New York Times, March 27, 2018, available here

Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys, Emily Badger, Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce, and Kevin Quealy, New York Times, March 19, 2018, available here

No progress seen for African-Americans on housing, jobs, and incarceration, Tracy Jan, The Boston Globe, February 26, 2018, available here

Conversations Aren't Enough, Teaching Tolerance, Spring 2017, available here.

White families with children are drawn to less diverse neighborhoods, schools, Emily Gersema, USC News, March 22nd, 2017, available here

Jeanne L. Reid and Sharon Lynn Kagan, The Century Foundation and PRRAC, April 2015, available here

"A formidable obstacle faced by preschool programs that seek to serve socioeconomically and racially diverse children is the prevalence of neighborhood segregation. Because many parents prefer to send their children to neighborhood programs, early education programs often reflect neighborhood housing patterns that result in high levels of segregation by income and race. Moreover, the number of high-minority, high-poverty neighborhoods is rising, with young children being the most likely age group to live in segregated neighborhoods. An analysis of 384 metropolitan areas across the country found that many children who are three to five years old reside in neighborhoods with levels of racial and economic segregation that are very high, and higher than for older children."