Special report: Teen shares trials of homeless living
By Cole Short
The Forum - 03/10/2003
Curled up on the couch after school, Kassie Erickson seems like a typical teenager. The
13-year-old groans about school, homework and her younger sister, Katarina. She talks
passionately about friends and her involvement in Moorhead’s swim team. And in her
free time, she catches “Friends” reruns and jams to rapper Eminem. But unlike
most girls her age, the Moorhead Junior High student understands the hardships that come
with being homeless.
Erickson and her family found themselves homeless in Moorhead twice in 1996. They stayed
with friends and family when they could. For three months they slept inside a 1987 Buick
Century. “It was hard for me,” Erickson said matter-of-factly. “It was
something I didn’t talk to other kids about, because I thought I’d get
teased.”
These days, Erickson travels up and down the Red River Valley talking about her bouts with
homelessness. She wants adults to know how children are affected by growing up without a
permanent place! to live. And she wants kids her own age to understand what life is like
for classmates who have homework – but no home.
Left in the cold
Erickson was born in Fargo but raised in Moorhead until she was 4 years old. She and her
family left for Oregon in the mid-1990s. They returned to the area after her father had a
drug overdose. Erickson’s mother, Desera Grimley, current director of the Dorothy Day
House in Moorhead, wanted the family to return to its roots.
“I was born and raised in Moorhead,” Grimley said. “We wanted to come
home.”
The family found a modest apartment in Moorhead along 30th Avenue South, in the
city’s southeast corner. Erickson and her family were evicted by their landlord
following a domestic dispute between her parents. “We were on a waiting list to get
into a (new) apartment at the time,” Grimley recalls. “But it didn’t work
out.”
A mother of two young girls with a steady job and a college degree, Grimley first became
homeless in ! February 1996. For two months, the family relied heavily on friends and
relatives for a place to stay. Erickson rarely missed kindergarten classes, although
she migrated among three elementary schools. But her grades suffered, Grimley said, and
her oldest daughter often had trouble making friends.
“I didn’t talk to other kids about being homeless, at least at the time,”
Erickson said.
The family became homeless a second time in May and felt they could no longer impose on
friends and relatives. For three long months – May through July – Grimley and
her daughters called their Buick Century home. A rocky road Being homeless put Erickson
and her family on an emotional roller coaster years afterward, they say. Even after the
family found an apartment, Erickson had trouble excelling in school.
Grimley said she believes her daughter could have been placed in a gifted and talented
program if she had stayed
in one school and had a permanent home. But that wa! sn’t the case. In first, second
and third grades, Erickson’s grades suffered.
“She was flunking,” Grimley said.
Erickson’s social skills and self-esteem also lagged behind those of her classmates.
During third grade she invited eight girls to her birthday party. No one showed up. Teased
for being short and slightly overweight, Erickson soon became bulimic.
“Kassie didn’t have a friend until the sixth grade,” Grimley said.
“She really struggled with her self-esteem.”
Better times ahead
Life today seems easier compared with when she was homeless, Erickson said. These days,
she gets A’s in school and keeps a close circle of friends with whom she can discuss
being homeless.
“Most of my friends realize I was homeless for a while, but they don’t care and
don’t treat me differently,” she said.
The family has made plans to purchase a home in north Moorhead and leave behind their
subsidized apartment. Erickson now talks openly about her history of homelessnes! s. She
shares her story in schools in Fargo and Moorhead and at meetings across the Red River
Valley. Last year, Moorhead’s Human Rights Commission recognized Erickson’s
efforts to educate the public about being homeless by giving her a human rights award.
“I started speaking because I thought I could make a difference,” Erickson said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Cole Short at (701) 241-5557