America’s inescapable crisis: Student homelessness 

The housing crisis that affects students across the United States requires a coordinated response among those serving young people and families. 

 

Twenty-year-old Cory dreams of being a small business owner, worries about climate change and rising sea levels, and has lots of opinions about school, but what I notice about him today are his tired eyes, the result of a 90-minute bus trip across Los Angeles at 6 a.m. to a drop-in center where he goes several times a week to receive food, clothing, and social services. At night, he’s on his own without family or loved ones, sometimes sleeping on the street, couch surfing, and moving from one location to another. When he talks about school, he describes an educational system in which he felt overlooked and uncared for: “I felt like I was passing through.” 

There are more than 269,000 young people like Cory in California’s K-12 system, enough students to fill Dodger stadium almost five times (Bishop, Camargo Gonzalez, & Rivera, 2020). Of these students, 70% are Latinx, 12% are white, and 9% are Black (see Figure 1). In California and across the country, students experiencing homelessness are less likely to graduate and to be prepared for college and more likely to be suspended and miss significant school time compared to their peers (Aviles de Bradley, 2015; Bishop, Camargo Gonzalez, & Rivera, 2020; Moore, Astor, & Benbenishty, 2019). Analysis of statewide statistics shows that students experiencing homelessness  are almost twice as likely as their non-homeless peers to be suspended or miss an extended period of school, experience lower graduation rates, and fall short of college readiness standards (see Figure 2).  

Student homelessness has been on the rise nationally, with 15% growth over the last three years, bringing the total number of homeless students to more than 1.5 million (National Center for Homeless Education, 2020). As dire as the national situation is, though, it’s even worse in certain states and for certain student populations. California, for example, has seen a 48% growth in student homelessness over the last decade (Bishop, Camargo Gonzalez, & Rivera, 2020). And because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused unemployment rates to rise sharply in almost every state (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), the numbers will likely continue to grow significantly in the coming months. 

A multifaceted problem 

To better understand the scope of the crisis as it exists in California, our research team from UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools interviewed more than 150 people across the state, including students like Cory, as well as teachers, school administrators, officials in county school district offices, and nonprofit and higher education leaders. These interviews and our analysis of data across all 58 counties paint a stark picture of a generational challenge that should be a policy priority for every educator, lawmaker, and voter in our country. Although our research focused on California, the problem is not limited to that state, and we hope our findings can help inform educators across the country who are now working diligently to get services and support to a growing population of students experiencing homelessness.  

Our research found that obstacles to supporting housing-insecure students exist on multiple fronts. 

First, the growth of the homeless population has strained the ability of liaisons for homeless youth to identify and support the students who need services. These liaisons shoulder the major responsibilities for ensuring the academic success and well-being of young people experiencing homelessness, but the current staffing and funding levels are inadequate to meet the growing need. One county homeless liaison described the problem this way: 

I call myself the one-woman band. The funding from the state is nonexistent for homeless education. All of our money comes through the federal government and we have a grant which we have to apply for every three years to receive funding. And so, it’s basically me and the county. 

One possible reason for the inadequate federal and state financial support is that the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which determines what services homeless children receive, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) do not use the same definitions of homelessness (see Figure 3). For example, under the McKinney-Vento Act, any student showing a lack of fixed, regular, or adequate nighttime residence (such as students living in doubled-up housing or couch surfing) would qualify as homeless. This is a more expansive view on homelessness than the HUD definition, which requires students to show they are, or are at risk of, living in a place unsuitable for human inhabitation (such as on the streets or in a car). Two out of three students experiencing homelessness in California attend schools that receive no dedicated McKinney-Vento Act funding, and the state currently has no dedicated resources committed to the educational success of students experiencing homelessness in its formula for directing resources to schools.  

Dedicated liaisons are essential to assisting students who are homeless. However, teachers, administrators, and other support staff also have a role to play. In the December 2020 Kappan, Earl Edwards laid out a powerful vision of what high school educators can do to help students experiencing homelessness graduate. To provide these supports, faculty need training in key strategies such as trauma-informed care, restorative practices, and efforts that promote positive social and emotional development. A multitiered system of support (MTSS) framework centered on universal support and targeted responses can be especially helpful. As one district official explained to us, any adults who work directly with students could benefit from training in the kinds of supports homeless students need: 

Many districts identify homeless students and refer them to dedicated staff, such as a family advocate, but do not necessarily integrate training and knowledge of student homelessness challenges into their regular practices (e.g., counselors need to provide additional services to homeless high school students). 

Training should also consider how student identities interact with their housing status. For example, LGBTQ+ students often experience high rates of homelessness and housing insecurity because their family has rejected them (Durso & Gates, 2012). Young people who are LGBTQ+ and in need of housing are often in worse physical and mental health than their counterparts who are heterosexual and cisgender and are more likely to be housing insecure for longer periods of time (Choi et al., 2015). This speaks to the need for educators and policy makers to better understand how housing insecurity affects different student populations or which students might require more intensified support.  

Coordinated solutions 

California’s population, as in many other states, is profoundly stratified — economically, socially, and racially (Bohn & Danielson, 2016) — which contributes substantially to the difficulties of serving students experiencing homelessness and highlights the fact that student homelessness is the result of many broken factors in our society. As such, we need solutions that address the whole system that leads families into homelessness. 

Because no single public service can adequately respond to the whole web of challenges families face (Corporation for Supportive Housing, 2011), everyone involved in addressing homelessness must shift from a siloed approach where different agencies work in fragmented and isolated ways to a full system of support at the local, regional, and statewide levels. Successful interventions must begin by linking housing, child welfare systems, and public education. Such an approach acknowledges three important realities: (1) the problems that homeless and housing-insecure families face are too complex for any one system to address, (2) if families lack stable housing, it is extremely difficult to address the other challenging issues they face, and (3) schools can function as hubs that bring services and providers to students and families in ways welfare and housing agencies cannot do in isolation. As one liaison explained: 

We know we need to identify students, but sometimes the students are not identified because it’s one person trying to identify versus having a whole system put in place. So it really becomes a whole support network. You need to have all levels communicating and working together. 

Greater coordination of services targeting families experiencing or at risk of homelessness will become even more essential as states prepare for tough budget decisions. Our research identifies many remedies for lawmakers to consider, but all of them will require clear communication and record-keeping across sectors. While some of this coordination can occur under current policies, some will require changes to existing law.  

At the local level, school board members can help broker conversations among city and county governments, early childhood providers, school districts, colleges, and area nonprofits to provide and coordinate access to resources to support students and families experiencing homelessness. Such conversations might not only improve coordination of services but could also open doors to the establishment of after-school programming and other valuable supports from businesses, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits serving neighborhoods disproportionately affected by housing instability. 

At the state level, augmented funding is needed for communities that have the highest concentrations of homelessness. States can also establish more robust data systems for identifying and tracking the educational progress and health of students experiencing homelessness, from birth to employment.  

Education is largely a state and local responsibility, but the federal government has an essential role to play in helping states support those affected by housing instability. Congress can establish a standard, comprehensive definition for student homelessness to improve the identification of young people who need support. However, a common definition is just a start. Federal resources have to follow the needs of a growing crisis. 

To ensure that students receive the support they need, federal lawmakers must adequately fund the McKinney-Vento Act, which has long functioned as an unfunded mandate, requiring states to serve more than 1.5 million homeless students without adequate resources (National Center for Homeless Education, 2020). Further, the federal government can provide financial incentives to encourage state efforts that strengthen coordination among early childhood education, colleges, housing, employment, and homelessness services providers.  

Seeing and responding 

A more comprehensive and coordinated approach to homelessness will provide some relief for young people like 20-year-old Johnny, who faced constant instability as a homeless teen and kept it a secret from those around him: 

My dad’s friend let us stay inside his house. But there were times when they would kick us out. And it would be two or three in the morning, and we would have to leave the house. So, there are times where I will keep Axe spray and just spray myself before I go to school . . . I kept [my homelessness] to myself because I was already getting bullied about my weight and everything else. 

Students like Cory and Johnny are relying on all of us to adopt a targeted, coordinated strategy that follows students as they move through the education pipeline. As part of a comprehensive response to homelessness, local, state, and federal lawmakers should act aggressively to address the basic needs of families that are not being met. Young people are waiting for us to do so.   

References 

Aviles de Bradley, A. (2015). Homeless educational policy: Exploring a racialized discourse through a critical race theory lens. Urban Education, 50 (7), 839-869 

Bishop, J.P., Camargo Gonzalez, L., & Rivera, E. (2020). State of crisis: Dismantling student homelessness in California. UCLA School of Education & Information Studies, Center for the Transformation of Schools.  

Bohn, S. & Danielson, C. (2016). Income inequality and the safety net in California. Public Policy Institute of California. 

Choi, S.K., Wilson, B.D.M., Shelton, J., & Gates, G. (2015). Serving our youth 2015: The needs and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth experiencing homelessness. 
The Williams Institute with True Colors Fund. 

Corporation for Supportive Housing. (2011). Silos to systems: Preserving and strengthening families and children experiencing recurring child welfare system encounters and housing crises. Author. 

Durso, L.E. & Gates, G.J. (2012). Serving our youth: Findings from a national survey of service providers working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. UCLA, The Williams Institute. 

Edwards, E. (2020). Listening to formerly homeless youth. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (4), 52-57. 

Moore, H., Astor, R.A., & Benbenishty, R. (2019). A statewide study of school-based victimization, discriminatory bullying, and weapon victimization by student homeless status. Social Work Research, 43 (3), 181-194. 

National Center for Homeless Education. (2020). Federal data summary: School years 2015-16 through 2017-18. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and selected area, seasonally adjusted. Economic News Release. www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t01.htm