No Home for the Holidays: Homeless Students on the Rise

by Barbara Duffield

Published December 23, 2008 @ 12:25PM PT

Homelessness represents an extreme form of poverty and is caused by many factors in isolation or combination: a lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs paying living wages, debt due to health costs and other household expenses, domestic violence, foreclosures.

At least 10 percent of all children living in poverty will experience homelessness over the course of a year (1.35 million children). While many young people experience homelessness as part of a family, other youth in homeless situations are on their own. It is estimated that between 1.6 and 1.7 million youth run away or are forced to leave home each year, due to severe dysfunction in their families, including circumstances that put their safety and well-being at risk.

Homelessness compromises the very foundation of child development. Homeless children and youth suffer loss, trauma, instability, and food insecurity, among other deprivation. Infants and toddlers who are homeless face grave risk of developmental delays and health complications. School-aged children experiencing homelessness are diagnosed with learning disabilities and chronic and acute health conditions at much higher rates than other children. They typically do not have the proper documentation (e.g., birth certificates, immunization records, transcripts, etc.) when they attempt to enroll in school, which may lead to delays in enrollment and days missed from school. Children and youth who experience homelessness and high mobility struggle academically, and many fall behind in school.

This year, as the economic outlook continues to darken, thousands of families face devastating financial news - job losses and business closures, rising variable interest rates, foreclosure on their only home, and/or loss of rental housing due to foreclosure on their landlord, as well as increases in prices of food, goods, and medical care. At a time when communities all over the country are struggling to extend dwindling resources such as food, clothing, and various services to ever-growing numbers of people in need, affordable housing is also in short supply. Many families find themselves in desperate situations, living in cars, campers, shelters, motels, doubled up with other people, or combinations of all of those housing arrangements.

Homeless students are a highly mobile population, living in vulnerable and extremely unstable circumstances. Due to that mobility, schools count homeless students throughout the entire academic year.

A report released December 19,2008 by The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) and First Focus, titled The Economic Crisis Hits Home, resulted from a voluntary survey conducted between October, 2008 and December, 2008.

The report indicates broad and rapid increases in the numbers of homeless students being identified by school districts around the country since the school year began. Some districts have already identified - in the first few months of this school year - as many homeless students as they identified in 2007-2008 academic year. Here are some details from the report:

• 330 school districts identified the same number or more homeless students in the first few months of this school year than they identified the entire previous year.
• 847 school districts identified half or more of last year's caseload in the first few months of this school year.
• 459 school districts had an increase of at least 25 percent in the number of homeless students identified between the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years.

We can't end homelessness without sensible policies to promote affordable housing and prevent homelessness. Further, we cannot improve the futures of children and youth who experience homelessness without appropriate services in the school setting.

NAEHCY and First Focus recommend a series of responses for policymakers, schools, and communities to this crisis. A first step in solving the problem of homelessness is for Congress to increase funding for schools and communities to serve these families and youth through an economic stimulus package, specifically through the MV education programs, the Emergency Shelter Grant program, and Section 8 Housing Vouchers. A second step is to expand the definition of homelessness across federal agencies to be consistent and responsive to the reality of family and youth homelessness as it appears in our communities. Additional recommendations are enumerated in the report (which you can read here).

We often speak of various homeless populations as if they were distinct and separate, without connection. Yet every adult was once a child, and many homeless adults experienced disruption in their living situations during their childhood.

According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, and reported by the Interagency Council on Homelessness in 1999, 21 percent of homeless adults experienced homelessness as a child. Of these, 33 percent ran away from home, and 22 percent were forced to leave their homes. This striking correlation between adverse childhood experiences and adult homelessness ought to be cause for concern, as well as a key topic in any conversation about ending homelessness.

When we ignore or minimize child and youth homelessness, we perpetuate adult homelessness.

[Picture: from Cap City Kids in Texas]