Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Jalyssa Hicks waits for after-school activities to begin. Children living at the Rescue Mission take part in activities ranging from arts to sciences.

Kiasia Hicks, 10, puts her arm around her mother, Deanne Hicks, at the Rescue Mission. Deanne Hicks is a constant presence in the children's room, helping with homework and after-school activities.

Jalyssa Hicks, 6, listens to Sara Shelton, 18, read during story time at the Rescue Mission. Shelton was part of a group of Colonial Baptist Church youth group members who visited the mission and read books to children staying there.

The school bus pulled up to the Roanoke Rescue Mission's women and children's center just after 7 a.m. About 15 children got on.

Jalyssa and Kiasia Hicks, ages 6 and 10, waved to their mother, Deanne Hicks, who stood in the timid first light of dawn, tapping on the bus windows and blowing kisses to her children. Across the street, adults were lined up outside the Rescue Mission's main building, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the doors to open for breakfast.

In the Roanoke school system's files, Jalyssa, Kiasia and the three or four dozen other children at the mission are listed as homeless. In their classrooms, however, they are impossible to tell apart from other children. Visit any school and you would never know that the number of homeless children in Roanoke has more than doubled in the past two years. They are hidden in plain sight.

Last year, about 393 Roanoke students were listed as homeless, roughly 3 percent of the total student population. The city has one of the highest rates of homeless students in Virginia.

In 2006 there were 306, which was up from 163 in 2005. Most are in elementary school. The numbers also have gone up statewide, said Patricia Popp, state coordinator for the education of homeless children and youth.

The city's figures are probably too low, however. Although school officials have improved their outreach to homeless families, many parents are still reluctant to tell officials about their situation. But as the city finds more homeless families, and as the economy spirals further downward, the numbers are likely to grow.

"It wouldn't surprise me, maybe not next year but in the next couple of years, if we see our number closer to 500," said Malora Horn, the school system's homeless student program coordinator.

Horn makes sure students are automatically signed up for free meals and that they receive the support they need to do well in school. It's hard to concentrate on school when the basic need for shelter isn't met.

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Kiasia Hicks sat in the front row of the class, with her head bent over her notebook. With her "High School Musical" sweat shirt and her new braids, she could have been any fifth-grader in America. But she was quieter than her classmates and kept to herself.

Researchers have found that homeless students repeat grades or are identified as having disabilities more often than students who aren't homeless. That's not the case with Kiasia, whose latest report card showed A's and B's. There's talk of putting her in advanced middle school classes next year. She has decided she wants to be a photographer when she grows up.

Fallon Park, the city's largest elementary school, is used to children who live in shelters. Of the roughly 200 students identified as homeless in Roanoke this year, 42 of them are at Fallon Park.

"I don't let that interfere with how they're performing with us," said Eric Fuchs, who teaches Kiasia's fifth-grade class.

Just before lunchtime at Fallon Park, Kiasia and two classmates teamed up for a writing project. Fuchs explained the basics of narrative writing -- obstacles and actions to overcome the obstacles -- and asked students to come up with a story.

In Kiasia's story, Elmer and the Dragon are on their way to the North Pole to deliver Christmas letters to Santa Claus. They pack gloves, boots, a "skarf," candy "and 12 pieces of bubble gum." But they get caught in a blizzard and lose some of the letters in the snow. They scramble, looking for the letters. The snow thickens and Elmer and the Dragon are caught in a cold dark night with no place to go.

Kiasia thought about this predicament and decided to send them an igloo. She picked up her pencil and wrote: "They spend one and a half days in the igloo to stay safe."

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Roughly 630 people spent at least one night at the family shelter in November, about 100 more than earlier in the year. About 40 children stay there every night. The shelter has been cramming more beds into rooms and buying more mats for the floors. Several families now share a room that was meant for one. Finding a quiet place for parents to discipline their children is almost impossible.

The Rescue Mission also hired Lynne Pope in October to coordinate the children's activities. A retired elementary schoolteacher and principal, Pope spends her afternoons and evenings helping children with their homework, entertaining them with crafts, consoling them when they get grouchy and giving stressed parents a chance to look for work and a permanent place to live.

Every day, after school, Pope offers children an after-school snack in the shelter's main kitchen. She asks them about their day, then shepherds them to a room upstairs for an hour or two of homework. But with the constant bustle of activity it can be difficult to concentrate.

Distractions were frequent one afternoon. One child needed a dictionary. Another was struggling with fractions. Kiasia worked on a science project, with her mother's help. Jalyssa made her way through her subtractions, counting on her fingers ("Seven, take away one. Six."). A television blared. A toddler, too young for school and feeling left out by all the homework, ran through the room, fussing. Pope set her up to play quietly with blocks. It worked, briefly.

After homework, it's time for activities: fashioning Christmas tree ornaments from clothespins or making snowmen out of socks. That's followed by dinner, chapel, story time -- with milk and cookies -- then bed. Some days, Pope takes children to museums or to the theater. She also directs the procession of volunteers and church groups who come in to help.

It feels like summer camp, with its structured days and its whirlwind of volunteers, snacks and activities. Boredom is impossible.

"My vision is they would look back on this time and say, 'Oh, this is where I learned about astronomy. This is where I learned about painting with acrylics,' " Pope said.

On a chilly evening, a church group performed a puppet show in the kitchen for children. "Ticklish Ruben," soon had everyone in stitches. All 38 children staying at the mission that night also received a new winter coat, each one in a beautifully wrapped box, courtesy of Grace Community Fellowship in Vinton.

Another volunteer blew up balloons and shaped them into dachshunds and swords. Soon, the children were jousting with their balloons and wearing their new coats. A little girl who had stood, aloof and unsmiling, throughout the puppet show and the coat giveaway, giggled and tagged other children with her balloon.

Kiasia waved her plastic dachshund and barked. Whereas she can be quiet and reserved at school, she is outgoing and talkative at the mission. She has more friends there than at school, she said. Sometimes the kids at school pick on her, she said.

Just steps from the children, in the shelter's main lobby, tired-eyed women signed in at the front desk, picked up bedclothes and shuffled off to find a bed. Mats and slumbering bodies carpeted the living room floor, which had been turned into an overflow dormitory.

It was the first Friday of December. A few blocks away, in downtown Roanoke, hundreds celebrated the lighting of the city's Christmas tree.

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Hicks came to the Rescue Mission with her children in September, hoping to put an end to a string of abusive relationships. There had been arguments, fights and, in 1999, while living in Lynchburg, she pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding, a felony. She lost her driver's license. About a year ago, she split with her husband and moved from Lynchburg to Moneta. She worked at Bojangle's and rented the basement of a house. But after the couple who owned the house got a divorce, they put it on the market. Hicks had nowhere to go.

"If it wasn't for the Rescue Mission right now I would probably lose my mind," she said.

In May, while still in Moneta, Jalyssa had a severe asthma attack. Hicks said she borrowed a car to get medicine. She got pulled over, panicked and gave the officer her sister's Social Security number, she said. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor identity theft and will serve a 25-day sentence after Christmas. Kiasia and Jalyssa will stay with a friend.

"I've made bad choices in the past," she said. "When I came here to the Rescue Mission, I made a different kind of choice."

Hicks, who is looking for work, has been a constant presence in the children's room, helping Pope organize activities, volunteering for homework duty and cleaning up behind the pack of children as they tear through the building and punch all the buttons in the elevator.

On Monday, after weeks of searching, she signed a lease for a subsidized apartment at Afton Gardens in Northwest Roanoke. It has two bedrooms and a balcony with sliding glass doors. After a quiet Christmas at the Rescue Mission, the family will move in January, after Deanne has served her time.

Kiasia is already making plans for her new home: "Wait until I turn 15. Then I have to have my own room. It's a law."