The number of homeless children in the city’s public schools increased by 25 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to a new report from the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness.
Eighty-four thousand students were homeless in school year 2013-14, the most recent data available that the New York City Department of Education provided to ICPH (the number of homeless students in charter schools wasn’t included). Out of those 28,000 children lived in the city’s shelters; 48,000 were doubled up and 7,000 resided in unspecified locations. The increase in the number of homeless students was largely caused by an increase in the number of families living doubled up.
Homeless children attended all of the city’s 31 school districts, at an average rate of 8 percent, according to the report. But the distribution varied widely, with the highest percentage of homeless students in the Highbridge and Concourse neighborhoods in the Bronx, which also have the largest number of family shelters.
Homeless students achieved worse outcomes on all educational indicators the report’s authors looked at, ranging from test scores to dropout rates, compared to their poor but housed peers.
“Homeless students are really struggling the most educationally and this is important to think about because homeless students are falling behind,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, one of the report’s authors.
Click here for the full report.
