Chicago Sun-Times
Sunday, December 14, 2008

By Phil Kadner

During her junior year at Lane Tech College Prep High School, Crystal Montanez studied her ACT exam under the dome light of her car.
Montanez, now 18 and a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was not only homeless during her last two years in high school, but living without adult supervision.
The Chicago Public Schools have identified 2,096 “unaccompanied youth” like Crystal in the school system, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
“I didn’t have anything to eat the day I took the act,” Montanez told me. “But I still scored a 26 on the college placement exam.”
As stories continue to roll out about pay-to-play politics, of corruption at the highest levels of state government, it’s easy to ignore the folks at the bottom of the political food chain.
“Most of my teachers didn’t know I was homeless,” Montanez told me. “I didn’t want them to know. I didn’t want to be a pity case. I didn’t want my teachers saying oh, the poor thing is homeless so we should give her a good grade.” I took advance placement courses in my junior and senior years. I graduated 32nd in my class of 867 students. I just knew I had to do that if I wanted a better life.”
Anne Bowhay, spokes-women for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, contends that the state budget for homeless youth programs has remained at $4.7 million for nearly a decade.
But the Coalition claims a victory of sorts this year obtaining $3 million new state money to fund public school services for homeless student’s throughout the state.
There are about 25,000 homeless students in Illinois, 9, 134 in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in Chicago schools this school year, a 80 percent increase.
Crystal said she barley knew her biological father. She spent much of her youth with her grandparents in Humboldt Park, but after her grandfather’s death. She said she had a falling out with her grandmother.
“I was working 30 hours a week in a retail store, so that gave me enough money to keep gas in the car, clean my clothes at a laundromat and occasionally pay rent when I stayed with friends,” she said. “But I didn’t have tie to play, like the rest of the kids. “I knew I had to study. I knew that was the only way to get to college and change my life.”
She wore the same clothes for days at a time. Sometimes, her only meal was the free lunch at school.
“For a time I stayed with a friend in Cicero, but that’s a suburb a long way from my school, so I would have to get up at 5 a.m. to make it to class on time.
“I had great friends. Without their help and the help of their parents, who let me stay with them from time to time, I would never have made it.”
For the first 3 years of high school, Crystal had a prefect attendance record.
Here’s what Jack G. Cox, a social worker and homeless education liaison at Lane Tech wrote about Crystal in a letter seeking a college scholarship for her:
“She has demonstrated adaptability, resilience and focus in approaching her studies, despite facing obstacles many students would find difficult to manage.”
Crystal was a member of the National Honors Society and senior class Officer at Lane Tech and earned a 4.56 grade point average.
“My grandparents came here from Puerto Rico and they had difficulty speaking the English language,” Crystal told me.
“So I never had anyone who could help me with my studies. I had to do everything on my own. “But they always told me how important it was to get a good education.”
“The worst part at the end of high school wasn’t being homeless. The worst part was not having anyone who card about me, or to protect me. No one who I ever felt loved me.”
She was awarded a full college scholarship by the Posse Foundation, an organization that identifies youngsters from nontraditional backgrounds who may be future leaders. She also received a $2,000 scholarship from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
Crystal said she’s getting straight A’s and B’s in college, where she’s a psychology major.
“I’m pre-med,” she told me. “I’m going to be a doctor someday.”