Charlene Hunt compares the homeless students she oversees to sparrows searching for a place to nest.

Like the young girl who lived in a ravine and came to school smelling of dirt.

Or the children who spent their nights sleeping in a school hallway.

Hunt, homeless liaison with the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, knows of others living in cars, parks, campgrounds and pay-by-the-week motels, or relying on a friend's couch.

But nesting places are becoming harder to find.

The school district, with an enrollment of about 19,000, counted 680 homeless students within its boundaries last school year – a 31 percent increase over the previous year. Those figures coincide with an alarming spike in the number of homeless students nationwide.

And with the home foreclosure crisis and rising unemployment putting even more at risk, officials say enrolling homeless students in school is becoming critical.

"Our homeless kids would rather be at school," said DeAnn Kamilos, principal of Kinney Continuation High in Rancho Cordova. "I've had students tell me 'You're the only people who I feel care about me.' "

In Folsom Cordova, which includes the cities of Rancho Cordova and Folsom, district staff and community groups are working to keep homeless students in school and make their lives more bearable.

Hunt, for instance, is part of the district's Learning Express, a four-person homeless services team funded through Title I and the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Hunt's team helps provide transportation, free and reduced-price lunches, and school supplies to those in need. But homelessness is more than a school issue and the district has enlisted the help of residents and community organizations.

Project 680, for example, recently collected more than 3,100 pairs of new socks for homeless students from local businesses, churches and neighborhood groups.

"I was so blown away to find out there are 680 documented cases of homeless students in the district," said Ryan Lundquist, president of the Cordova Towne Neighborhood Association, which spearheaded the sock drive.

Federal law requires school districts to identify students who are homeless, using as a definition "an individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence."

That includes many students less visible than those living on the streets or in homeless encampments.

"It could be someone living next door without power in the house," Lundquist said.

It also covers high school seniors such as Vince Neel and Vanessa Steeves, who've spent most of their young lives living under the homeless student definition.

Neel, 18, expects to graduate in May from Kinney High and enlist in the Army. The military, with three hot meals, a barrack and a bunk, looks pretty attractive to Neel.

"In the Army I'll be covered for life," he said.

Many of the homes he has lived in with his mother and sister, Neel said, have been "trashy motels with people up all night doing drugs and fighting."

Being homeless, he said, "is kind of like a helpless feeling, especially growing up as a kid. My mom didn't know what to do and we didn't know where we'd end up next."

Neel said he ran away at age 16 and has been on his own ever since. He's been living at his girlfriend's home in Rancho Cordova for the past month.

Steeves, a 17-year-old attending Folsom High School, said her homeless journey started in the second grade when she and her mother and younger brother were evicted from their apartment.

From there on, Steeves said, her home consisted of brief stints with relatives, friends or mere acquaintances.

"I lived in a room in an older man's home in Carmichael until he died my freshman year," Steeves said.

School became her one steady rock. She joined the Folsom High girl's softball team and is one of its top players.

"I have to take the bus to school and I see kids with fancy clothes and cars. I feel different, but it doesn't bother me," she said.

For the past 18 months, she's been reunited with her mother and brother, the three of them living in a one-bedroom apartment in Folsom.

Her homelessness, she said, hasn't been all bad.

"If I hadn't gone through this I wouldn't have had the focus to go on to college," she said.

Call The Bee's Walter Yost, (916) 321-1146.