Skip to footer

Record number of homeless children enrolled in US public schools

Nearly 1.3 million homeless children and teens were enrolled in schools in the 2012-13 school year, an 8 percent increase from the previous school year – and an 85 percent increase since the beginning of the recession.

|
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
First lady Michelle Obama helps fill backpacks with items to give to homeless children on Sept. 11 at the Inspired Teaching School in northeast Washington. The number of homeless children enrolled in public schools hit a record 1.3 million in 2012-13, the Education Department said.

A record number of homeless students were enrolled in US public schools last year, according to new numbers released Monday by the Department of Education.

The data – which most experts say underreport the actual number of homeless children in America – showed that nearly 1.3 million homeless children and teens were enrolled in schools in the 2012-13 school year, an 8 percent increase from the previous school year.

The number of homeless students has been rising steadily for a number of years, and has increased about 85 percent since the beginning of the recession.

“The data released today confirm what our members see every day – increasing numbers of children and youth struggling to survive without a home,” said Barbara Duffield, director of policy and programs for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, in a statement.

According to the breakdown of numbers in the data released, the vast majority of homeless youth – 75 percent – are living "doubled-up," meaning multiple families are living together not by choice. Another 6 percent are in hotels or motels. None of the youths in those categories are recognized as homeless by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), meaning that while those students are eligible for assistance through local schools, they don't qualify for HUD services. A bill currently before Congress would amend the HUD definition to include those additional homeless youth – a priority for a number of children's advocates.

“The new data means that a record number of kids in our schools and communities are spending restless nights in bed-bug-infested motels and falling more behind in school by the day because they’re too tired and hungry to concentrate," said Bruce Lesley, president of the First Focus Campaign for Children, in a statement Monday. "This is a desperate situation, and the first step we must take is to get homeless students the housing assistance they need today by passing the Homeless Children and Youth Act.”

For the first time this year, the Education Department asked schools to report whether homeless students were living with their parents or on their own. Some 6 percent – nearly 76,000 students – were living on their own, a category that homeless advocates say is at particularly high risk for sexual and physical abuse and exploitation.

The data gathered in the report comes from schools, but doesn't include infants and toddlers or homeless children and teens either not enrolled in public school or not identified by school officials.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Record number of homeless children enrolled in US public schools
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2014/0923/Record-number-of-homeless-children-enrolled-in-US-public-schools
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe