High School Students ages 13-19

We are able to house up to eight high school students in our permanent living facility in Kalispell, MT

Yes! We have a male wing of our home and a female wing of our home. Students will not need to share bathrooms with the opposite gender.

Students must be enrolled in high school and motivated to complete their secondary education; students must be homeless as defined by the McKinney-Vento Act; and be able to pass a drug test.

Broadly, this law passed by Congress in 1987 provides federal funding to homeless shelter programs across the country. The bi-partisan bill named after the initial sponsors, Stewart McKinney (R-CT) and Bruce Vento (D-MN), established the Interagency Council on Homelessness and continues to be renewed by Congress.

Congress derived the language for this Act from an Illinois statute, which defines “homeless children,” as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” Descriptions and examples of children protected by this Act include:

(a) Children sharing housing due to economic hardship or loss of housing;

(b) Children living in “motels, hotels, trailer parks, or campgrounds due to lack of alternative accommodations”

(c) Children living in “emergency or transitional shelters”

(d) Children whose primary nighttime residence is not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation.

(e) Children living in “cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations…” Under the McKinney-Vento Assistance Act, school districts are mandated by federal law to provide transportation for its students. As a result, Sparrow’s Nest of Northwest Montana’s home serves the Bigfork, Columbia Falls, Kalispell, and Whitefish School districts. This means that its residents do not have to transfer schools when they move into the Sparrow’s Nest Home.