{"id":195016,"date":"2025-12-29T22:31:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/a-growing-american-crisis-is-affecting-more-than-1-million-students-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T22:31:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:31:20","slug":"a-growing-american-crisis-is-affecting-more-than-1-million-students-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/a-growing-american-crisis-is-affecting-more-than-1-million-students-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"A growing American crisis is affecting more than 1 million students – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 After T\u2019Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out.
They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began looking for a rental that will accept her hard-won housing voucher \u2013 all while caring for her five children, including a newborn.
\u201cIt\u2019s been extremely difficult,\u201d she told USA TODAY, recounting how she\u2019s tried to keep her oldest children \u2013 ages 14, 9 and 8 \u2013 in school, paying for taxis to take them to class and ensuring they have some quiet study time, a challenge in their cramped one-bedroom unit.
Jackson and her family are not alone: Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of homeless students are in hotels, doubled up in apartments or living in shelters. Most of them are with at least one parent or guardian, though many are unaccompanied.
The number of students grappling with unstable housing has jumped in recent years, a continuation of a decadeslong trend, and a troubling sign that a deepening housing crisis is hurting the country\u2019s youngest and most vulnerable people.
In 2025, New York City reported 154,000 homeless students, the highest amount in the city\u2019s recorded history. Last year in California, the number of homeless students rose by nearly 20,000 statewide, a 4% increase from a year earlier, and the sharpest rise the state has seen in a decade.
The problem isn\u2019t limited to the largest states or cities. Suburban and rural communities in states like Iowa, Indiana and Florida also reported upticks in student homelessness in 2025.
\u201cThis is happening across the United States,\u201d said Michael Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in education economics and policy. \u201cWe can\u2019t just say it\u2019s a rural issue or it\u2019s an inner-city problem. It\u2019s everywhere.\u201d
According to the National Center for Homeless Education, there are nearly 1.4 million homeless students nationwide. And while the federal tally represents a 104% increase in student homelessness between 2005 and 2023, it\u2019s still a vast undercount, experts say.
That\u2019s because it\u2019s difficult to keep track of these students, especially in areas where local agencies don\u2019t share information with one another or, in many cases, lack funding.
Homeless students change schools often. Some don\u2019t tell their friends or teachers about their living situation. And parents themselves have kept low profiles out of fear that their children would be taken away.
\u201cWe asked a kid once \u2018What\u2019s the hardest part about living in a shelter?\u2019 and she said, \u2018Hiding it from my friends,\u2019\u201d recalled Jamila Larson, the founder of Playtime Project, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that engages homeless children in games and field trips.
Another reason homeless students are considered a \u201chidden\u201d population: More than 70% of them are \u201cdoubled up,\u201d meaning they are sharing the housing of others. In some cases, three or four families are living in one apartment.
Because of this, it often falls completely on teachers or school staff to identify whether a student is housing insecure.
\u201cIt takes a lot of proactive work on behalf of the school to identify a student as homeless,\u201d said Barbara Duffield,\u00a0the executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of homeless youth. \u201cBut that\u2019s the first step\u201d to getting them help.
The increasing number of homeless students mirrors other worrisome trends.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released its annual homelessness survey and found that 771,480 people, including adults, were living on the streets or in shelters \u2013 the highest number ever recorded on a single night, the agency said.
The age group that saw the largest jump in homelessness, according to HUD: children under the age of 18.
\u201cAll the indicators are saying that kids are struggling across the board,\u201d said Gottfried, noting increases in chronic absenteeism and a downtick in children\u2019s academic achievements.
HUD blamed the rise in homeless residents on a worsening affordable housing crisis, rising inflation, stagnating wages and an end to COVID-era public assistance programs, including the expanded child tax credit, all of which has \u201cstretched homelessness services systems to their limits,\u201d the agency said.
Advocates and researchers say that while there are many factors contributing to the student homelessness crisis, affordable housing remains the most prominent and challenging barrier for young people and families.
\u201cAt the end of the day, homelessness is a housing problem,\u201d said Ann Owens, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. \u201cThere\u2019s just not enough affordable units for families to live in.”
Growing up without stable housing can have impacts on young people well after they leave the classroom.
Lack of a GED or high school diploma, Duffield said, is the single greatest risk factor for homelessness as a young adult. For the 2022-2023 school year, the average graduation rate for homeless students was 68%, nearly 19% lower than all other students and 10% less than students who were poor but had stable housing, according to federal tallies.
Jackson spent time in and out of shelters in grade school and remembers how her mother toiled to keep her in class and out of harm’s way. Moving into a shelter with her own children decades later has been very painful, she said.
\u201cWhen we first got here, I cried for like two weeks straight,” she said. “But my little guys are really strong soldiers. They are what pulled me through.\u201d
Homeless students face other significant challenges, from lack of transportation to frequent school transfers. They also experience a higher rate of disciplinary action than their peers, research shows.
In Gastonia, North Carolina, Mary Lenord and her 13-year-old son moved out of a house they were renting after their landlord refused to treat mold that was making them sick. She had trouble finding an apartment she could rent, so Lenord and her son slept in motels and couch surfed for a while.
Lenord said she could see the immediate effect the experience had on her son.
\u201cIt is impacting him because now he is getting in trouble at school,\u201d she told the Gaston Gazette, part of the USA TODAY Network, in September. \u201cSince we haven\u2019t had a place, he has gotten suspended like three times.\u201d
Under the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act<\/a>, the federal government allocates money to each state to identify and assist homeless students with transportation, housing and other needs. But that funding is far from adequate, experts say.
An analysis by the\u00a0Learning Policy Institute<\/a>\u00a0of McKinney-Vento allocations showed that during the\u00a02019-20 school year, federal funding provided an average of $79 per homeless student. And while there was a major influx of federal dollars during the pandemic, those funds have started to run out.
The program’s limited capabilities are facing more headwinds from Trump administration\u2019s cuts to the Department of Education, which will consolidate the McKinney-Vento program and drastically reduce its funding.
\u201cWe\u2019re very concerned about what’s going to happen,” Duffield said, noting that McKinney-Vento liaisons nationwide are the ones tasked with tracking homeless students and setting them up with transportation and other needs.
Another hurdle: The Department of Housing and Urban Development\u2019s definition of homelessness does not include those who are doubled up, excluding the largest demographic of homeless students and families from the agency\u2019s rapid rehousing aid.
This leaves much of the burden with states, local school districts and a patchwork of nonprofits and volunteer groups \u2013 all of which are scrambling to find innovative ways to help the increasing number of homeless students.
Nationwide, school districts are starting to build their own shelters to house homeless students. Some jurisdictions are taking even more temporary measures. For example, in Cincinnati, where the number of homeless students has jumped 77% in the last decade, the school district next year will open a fenced-in parking lot<\/a> where homeless families can sleep in their cars.
New Mexico, meanwhile, is set to expand a pilot program that paid homeless high schoolers hundreds of dollars per month if they met with a counselor, completed their coursework and maintained over a 90% attendance rate. Oregon is testing a similar initiative.
In many communities, families are forced to rely on volunteer groups and nonprofits, which are often underfunded and stretched thin.
In Sarasota, Florida, the nonprofit Harvest House had to close its family emergency shelter after the county commission slashed its funding. Dan Minor, the organization\u2019s president and CEO, recalled having to turn away a young family that was living in the back of a U-Haul truck.
\u201cThe kids looked completely shell-shocked,\u201d he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune<\/a>, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Over the past year, Jackson faced what at times seemed like insurmountable hurdles as she\u2019s tried to keep her children sheltered and in school.
After leaving her apartment in July 2024, Jackson and her children bounced between relatives\u2019 homes in Maryland and Virginia for months. Jackson eventually set out to find space in a local shelter \u2013 a demoralizing process in which she was constantly met by closed doors and stifling bureaucracy.
\u201cI broke down a few times,\u201d she said, describing several frustrating incidents, including one in which a shelter group changed her application requirements at the last minute. “We were going to move into my car. I didn\u2019t know what else to do.\u201d
After Jackson\u2019s mother called a local nonprofit and pleaded for them to help her daughter, the family was placed into a one-room unit and moved there in July. In the months since, she’s given birth to her fifth child, obtained a housing voucher and began touring rental units.
Jackson said she promised her kids they would be out of the shelter soon and is hoping to find an apartment close to their schools.
\u201cI haven\u2019t told them yet that we\u2019ll be leaving the shelter,\u201d Jackson said with a smile on a frigid Saturday morning in mid-December. \u201cThey\u2019ve been getting real antsy, especially with the holidays.”
She’s already planned how she’ll break the news to her children.
\u201cI want to take them to view (the apartment) \u2013 I\u2019ll tell them it\u2019s their aunt\u2019s or something,” she said. \u201cBut once they see it, I\u2019m going to surprise them and say, \u2018It\u2019s ours!\u2019 … That\u2019s my plan.\u201d
Christopher Cann is a national breaking news reporter at USA TODAY. Contact him by email at ccann@usatoday.com.<\/em>
Contributing: Chloe Collins, Gaston Gazette; Saundra Amrhein, Sarasota Herald-Tribune; Grace Tucker and Elizabeth B. Kim, Cincinnati Enquirer<\/em><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2013 After T\u2019Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out.They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began looking for a rental that will accept her hard-won housing voucher \u2013 all while caring for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-195016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}