Homelessness In Public Schools

Homeless students are one of the fastest-growing subgroups of students in the U.S. And while they are much more likely to fall off track and eventually drop out of school, they are also notoriously difficult to identify and subsequently help.

More than 1.3 million students were homeless during the 2013-14 school year, according to a new report released by America's Promise Alliance. That represents a 7 percent increase from the previous year and more than double the number of homeless students estimated in 2006-2007.

In New York City alone, nearly 83,000 children in public schools – around as many students as there are in the entire public school system of Austin, Texas – were considered homeless during the last school year, according to
In all five, homeless students' graduation rates lag well behind the rates for all students, even other low-income students, the report notes.

And as school budgets have been whittled down in districts across the county, liaisons for homeless students have reported having an increasingly difficult time identifying and helping them.

In fact, 61 percent of homeless students surveyed for the America's Promise report said they were never connected with any outside organization while homeless, despite 87 percent of those who were connected reporting they found such help valuable. That's perhaps not surprising, as more than 90 percent of liaisons reported that they worked in another official capacity in the school district, aside from their duties as a homeless liaison.

"Schools are critical access points to identify homeless students in need of help and connect them to a wide range of resources, both inside and outside school walls," the report's authors wrote. "Schools themselves are stretched thin, however, with limited time and dollars to adequately support this demographic of