City Enrolls Record Number of Pre-K Homeless

More than half of New York City's homeless children are enrolled in the city's free, full time pre-kindergarten program this school year, up from 45 percent in 2014 and 31 percent in 2013.

Among the 65,000 4-year-olds enrolled, 1,175 live in city shelters. It's the highest, pre-kindergarten enrollment of homeless children in New York City.

Deputy Mayor Richard Buery praised recruitment efforts, saying that a school setting is about more than education for these children.

"Often times, the one stable influence in that child's life were the schools," said Buery. "That stabilizing influence — you really cannot overstate what that means to the children in these pre-kindergarten classrooms around the city."

The program also aims to close down achievement gaps between students of different economic backgrounds.

"We know pre-kindergarten provides tremendous benefits to everyone who is involved," Buery said. "They do better in school, they do better in life."

The number of homeless school children in the city increased by 25 percent between 2010 to 2014, according the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness. The 2015 report says that more than 117,000 New York City public school students were homeless at some point during the last four years.