Breaking Down the Issue

• Students experiencing homelessness tend to have lower attendance and academic achievement than similar low-income students, and academic outcomes vary widely based on residential context.
• Homelessness poses significant socioemotional risks, including higher rates of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and suicide risk, along with elevated vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

Evidence-Based Practices

• Training school staff on students’ legal and educational rights and signs of homelessness is crucial to identifying and supporting students experiencing homelessness and is required by McKinney-Vento.
• Ongoing staff training in trauma-informed practices and anti-racist pedagogy can create a more supportive environment where students and families are more likely to self-identify as experiencing homelessness.
• Carefully designed and intentional collaborations and data sharing between schools and community providers can improve identification and ease access to resources for families.
• Regular communication with student-identified trusted adults allows schools to tailor practices to meet individual student needs and improve outcomes.
• Technology-based service delivery can benefit students, schools, and community organizations if districts ensure equitable access to these services.

Practices to Avoid

• Deficit-oriented and stigmatizing practices may have adverse short- and long-term consequences for students and their families.

What does it mean for a student to be considered “homeless”?

Students may become homeless due to a number of factors, including economic challenges like poverty, job loss, or family health issues, as well as natural disasters and the escalating cost of housing.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines students experiencing homelessness as those who lack a “fixed, regular, and adequate” nighttime residence. This may include, but is not limited to 1) Sharing housing or living “doubled up” with someone else due to economic hardship or loss of housing; 2) Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or campgrounds; 3) Living in an emergency or transitional shelter or youth who are abandoned in a hospital, prison, or a juvenile detention facility; and 4) Living in a place not meant for human habitation, such as a car, park bench, or on the streets. Contrary to stereotypes about homelessness, the vast majority of students experiencing homelessness (77%) live in doubled-up situations.  Migrant students who meet these definitions would also qualify. 

McKinney-Vento, originally passed in 1986 but amended several times thereafter, is the core federal legislative response to student homelessness. The Act grants various rights to students experiencing homelessness. These may also include, if applicable, special education services or English language support. Students are also eligible to receive transportation to and from school, access to extracurricular activities, and the ability to attend their original school even if they’ve moved away. It also mandates the appointment of Education Liaisons in school districts to raise awareness of these rights. While it has limitations, McKinney-Vento has evolved over time to offer significant educational rights to identified students experiencing homelessness.

How prevalent is student homelessness?

The number of students identified as homeless has increased since the early 2000s, although these changes can be explained at least in part by improvements in identification. Between the school years of 2004-5 and 2018-19, there was a 111.6% increase in the number of homeless students enrolled in public school districts and reported by state educational agencies.

In the 2021-22 school year, an estimated 1.2 million public school children (about 2% of total students) were identified as homeless. However, between 2018-19 and 2021-22, the number of students experiencing homelessness in public schools decreased by 13%, from 1.38 million to 1.2 million, despite only a 2.6% decrease in overall public school enrollment.

Several factors may explain this decline, including COVID-19-related eviction moratoriums and economic support from the American Rescue Plan. It is important to note that this observed decline may also be attributable to the under-identification of students experiencing homelessness during the pandemic, as stay-at-home orders and shifts in schooling modality made identification more challenging.  Moreover, some families may not self-identify as homeless due to stigma, fear, racism, or unawareness of McKinney-Vento Act definitions (such as the inclusion of “doubling up”), particularly if they are experiencing homelessness for the first time. There are some early signs that major US urban areas are experiencing a rise in homelessness among families due to the phase-out of COVID-19 supports and the influx of migrant families in a number of cities. Geographically, reports of student homelessness vary, with the Bureau of Indian Education, the District of Columbia, and New York reporting the highest rates (6% each), while Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico report less than 1% of students in homeless situations. However, it’s crucial to note that these figures represent reported cases, and identification issues exist across all states. Importantly, student homelessness is not limited to large cities; it can also be concentrated in suburbs and rural areas, where homelessness can be less visible due to gaps in social services. 

Homelessness tends to affect already marginalized students disproportionately. Students with disabilities, English learners, Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQIA youth are overrepresented among students experiencing homelessness. For instance, Black students (15% of all students) accounted for 24.3% of students experiencing homelessness, and Hispanic students (28.4% of all students) comprised 39.4%. National data highlight that students who qualify for special education and English language services are also over-represented among those experiencing homelessness. 

What do we know about the academic and socioemotional outcomes of students experiencing homelessness?

Students experiencing homelessness tend to have lower attendance and academic achievement than similar low-income students, and academic outcomes vary widely based on residential context.

• Students experiencing homelessness tend to change schools frequently. Evidence consistently suggests that such mobility disrupts academic learning and relationships, especially when it is frequent and poverty-related. In addition, schools with high rates of students who move face unique challenges when implementing school reform. 
• A recent report found that almost 60% of students experiencing homelessness in New York City were chronically absent (relative to 32% of their peers who did not experience homelessness). Further, these analyses showed that roughly one-quarter of students experiencing homelessness were proficient on state math and English tests in 4th grade – about half the rate of permanently housed students.
• Given that students experiencing homelessness are a highly diverse group, evidence suggests that academic outcomes vary substantially. For example, a recent study in Houston found that students experiencing homelessness who lived “doubled up” performed as well on state tests in math and reading as their housed peers. However, students residing in unsheltered contexts performed substantially worse than their peers in reading. The number of cumulative years of prior homelessness also seems to contribute negatively to students’ academic performance. 
• Local and state variations greatly influence homeless students’ academic outcomes, complicating cross-regional comparisons. Studies in California, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Washington show similar or worse educational risks for students living in motels or temporarily living with extended family or friends compared to those in shelters or without shelter, contrasting findings from research conducted in Houston.
• It is important to note that quantitative analyses of academic outcomes of students experiencing homelessness are still relatively rare and have methodological limitations. They are generally limited to specific states or districts, do not consistently account for the complex dynamics of homelessness, and may lack control variables or appropriate comparison groups.

Homelessness poses significant socioemotional risks, including higher rates of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and suicide risk, along with elevated vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

• The instability and stress associated with homelessness can take a toll on students’ mental health. Students experiencing homelessness are at significantly higher risk of suicide and other mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). 
• Housing-insecure youth and families also report higher rates of physical and emotional abuse and financial exploitation. They are even vulnerable to sex trafficking while staying in shelters, on the streets, and “doubled-up” with acquaintances, family, or strangers. 

What strategies have been proven ineffective?

Deficit-oriented and stigmatizing practices may have adverse short- and long-term consequences for students and their families.

• Stigmatizing practices targeting students experiencing homelessness, such as separate bus routes or homework assignments, can harm confidentiality and well-being and discourage students and families from sharing information with school staff. 
• Research suggests that marginalizing the role of race and its complex interactions with social class can be particularly psychologically damaging to students of color experiencing homelessness and may hinder them from accessing services. 
• While many anti-poverty strategies may also apply to the contexts of homelessness, one-size-fits-all solutions that assume all students and families experience homelessness in the same way, have the same needs, or treat homelessness as an identity rather than an experience, are unlikely to effectively meet the diverse needs and assets of students experiencing homelessness.   
• With few exceptions, segregation by housing status is not permissible under federal law and is linked to damaging outcomes for students. 

Relying on in-person encounters with parents or assuming parents will initiate contact with the school to access services is insufficient, especially for homeless unaccompanied minors. 

• With the shift to virtual learning due to COVID-19, educators and service providers recognized the importance of being data-driven, proactive, and intentional in their outreach to families. While reaching out to families was often challenging, those who made purposeful and proactive efforts discovered that it fostered stronger relationships between families and the school.