Once homeless, student to tackle college with the help of his ‘posse’
Foundation picks diamonds in the rough to shine
For as long as he could remember, Liyjon DeSilva’s life had been chaotic, with a father never in the picture and a mother who died when he was 5. There were too many moves to count, one caused by Hurricane Katrina. But this was different. Now he had no one.
Family members who had reluctantly given him shelter had abandoned him, taking his Social Security benefit money with them. The Lee High School sophomore had nowhere to live and no supervision at all.
A new course was added to his schedule — Survival 101 — and it was not an elective. No home. No money. Figure it out.
What should have happened next was all but etched in stone. Another life lost to the streets. A future compromised by rough associations and petty crime. Police soon know the name and face. DeSilva, the boy with the funny first name and the ready retort, the dropout dropping like a rock. Smart kid. Too bad. Or not. “I could have thrown everything away — given up,” he said. “I didn’t. I could still see possibilities.”
Instead, DeSilva tossed aside the script, managed school, managed the day-
to-day getting by, then one day was pulled from class to take a college entrance test, of all things. When his score topped all others at the school, administrators took jaw-dropping notice. Who was this kid?
Today, more than a year later, he is packing his bags for a journey north with his “posse,” a group of 10 young people who have shown enough in their brief lives to merit a free ride to a fancy university.
Homeless kids with no expectations don’t go to college. And truth be told, it wasn’t on DeSilva’s radar when he found himself left to his own devices, sink or swim, starve or not. But the Posse Foundation identifies potential diamonds from rough circumstances and sends them there, with a total count of more than 6,000 since it began with a handful of students in New York in 1989.
Among best in his class
Few faced circumstances as rough as DeSilva’s, yet few showed more potential. With no time for study and no guidance, he graduated among the top 5 percent in his class. His SAT scores were off the charts for his school. He had drive — that was obvious to anyone who met him — though little by way of direction.
The Posse Foundation changed that with a full scholarship to Carleton College in Minnesota. Today the 20-year-old sees a path, if not what lies at the end of it. He talks of becoming a writer, though not just a writer.
“I want to make an impact on human history,” DeSilva said.
Until then, he has no idea how that or anything short of it might happen. First things first. He has to focus on the next week, the next month. Figuring out a new place that has no resemblance to the familiar. Finding structure, embracing discipline.
“My short-term goals?” he mused. “Doing whatever the situation calls for.”
Now that is familiar territory, both for DeSilva and the Posse Foundation. He learned how to cope without a home or an involved family. For the better part of three years, he bounced around his southwest Houston neighborhood. Sometimes he would couch surf with friends, leaving before he wore out his welcome. Occasionally he crashed for short periods with more distant family members.
Too often he found himself sleeping in parking garages, which offered a little warmth and security, but he also liked parks where he could see the stars. At times he managed a few nights at a swimming pool. Motels, even cheap ones, were out of the question.
Food was another challenge, as he had no means to cook and didn’t want to live on fast food. Which means he didn’t eat enough, especially during the summer school recess. As he got a little older, he found part-time jobs that helped him scrape by, working for one stretch at Abercrombie & Fitch. That income allowed him to get a phone, though as funds dwindled he would inevitably let the service lapse. His eclectic wardrobe was mostly donated, as was most of what he owned.
“It was exhausting,” DeSilva said. “I never could get enough sleep, maybe four or five hours. I never really could study. But I felt it was another challenge, another step. I wasn’t struggling, that’s not what it felt like. I felt there was a lot I could still do.”
He made it, with help, but college is something else. The Posse Foundation understands that survival there is no sure thing, no matter how smart its scholarship recipients. Hence the posse. DeSilva will be joined by nine others from Houston who have spent months developing relationships, building trust, learning that someone will be there to help regardless of what the situation demands.
Much-needed support
For more than two decades, the Posse Foundation has committed itself to a pair of simple notions: Find special kids that others may overlook, and don’t let them fail. It does this not for their benefit, the foundation says, but ours. If young people from unlikely precincts never are identified, the profile of future leaders does not change: America becomes increasingly diverse, but those at the top do not. Anyone could pat a young man like DeSilva on the back. That’s not the point.
The Posse Foundation was started in New York City in 1989 by former teacher Deborah Bial, who had heard with dismay the story of a bright student from the Bronx who had dropped out of college and lamented that he might have stayed if only his posse of friends had been there with them. The idea came to her in a flash. Why not send the posse? Not a circle of friends, exactly, but a new circle of like-minded students who would succeed if they did not feel like they were marooned on a strange island.
“This is not rocket science,” Bial said. “What a great, simple idea — send a team of kids to college so that they have someone there to back them up.”
A graduation rate of 90-plus percent for Posse scholars bespeaks the sense of a team approach. For DeSilva, it’s a life very much at odds with what he knew. It was not so long ago when no one was there. Literally.
Then fortune cut him a rare break. A friend took him to meet a school social worker, Jessica Smith, who immediately recognized his intellect, his engagement with school, and his sadness. Caseworkers like Smith are used to being the point of contact for students whose families struggle to manage, but DeSilva was a special case. He seemed to have a world of potential and an equal extent of unmet needs. She got him some bus passes, gift cards, toiletries, and whatever resources she could put her hands on.
“He had no parents, no adults guiding him, nobody watching him at all,” Smith said. “He was literally raising himself. It tore me up. I wanted to take him home. But ethically, I could not do that.”
Nor could she even divulge the fact of his homelessness to others. Smith did pass along details of his predicament to Child Protective Services, but given his age and the lack of any evidence he was being abused, there was nothing the agency could do.
DeSilva was bewildered and dejected, Smith recalled of those early meetings. But mostly she remembered his determination to graduate from high school and his passion for learning. The classroom was his refuge. Most students are happy to hear the last school bell of the day, but for DeSilva it was a dispiriting moment, signaling a return to the world in which he had no place.
Ready for next chapter
By his junior year, Smith was determined to see him into college, somehow. She introduced him to the school’s college coordinator. Their ambitions were modest until the SAT scores came back and they began to sense the extent of his possibilities.
DeSilva’s senior year was a whirl of applications and planning, all of it foreign to him, and all of it coming at a time when he was living on the streets. Smith was there at every turn, helping, coaxing, pleading, overseeing.
After DeSilva turned 18 and gave his consent, she was able to tell others of his homelessness. Several teachers offered help as well as the school principal. Temporary lodging was found. When a Posse Foundation scholarship loomed as a possibility, Smith all but put her own family life on hold to make sure every form was filled out, every appointment kept. She drove DeSilva to interviews. She found him clothes for the interviews.
“When he got that letter saying he won it, that was a hugely exciting day, just huge,” Smith said. “I think as much as he could understand what an opportunity it was — what a victory it was to be selected — he did. But I’m not sure it will sink in until he’s there.”
Years after that first encounter, their relationship has changed. Smith fills the de facto role of mom, he says, which is fine by him. She and her husband have kids of their own, but DeSilva has gradually been incorporated into their daily orbit in a way hard to describe.
For once comfortable and settled, DeSilva will leave on Sept. 3 for Northfield, Minn., and the next chapter of his life. Seeing him settled into a college dormitory will be a thrilling moment for Smith, to be sure, one far beyond imagining on the day they met. And it’s reassuring to know he has another family of sorts to help with the rough days and lonely nights.
But he will be ever on her mind as the days get shorter. She will fret, like most any mother, and more than once she’ll probably cry like the Mississippi.