Before COVID-19, Research Alliance analyses documented a marked increase in the number of NYC elementary schools serving high proportions of homeless students. And the pandemic has now created new challenges for families who were already on the margins economically. Have you seen a change at your school in the number of students experiencing homelessness, or their circumstances? How did students experiencing homelessness fare during remote and hybrid learning? How did your school reach out to and support these students? What new resources are being offered now that students are back in classrooms? For your practice: What strategies do you use to identify and support students who may be experiencing homelessness? Are there non-teaching staff in your school who are available to help vulnerable students and families in crisis? What kinds of programs and practices have been successful in your school's work with homeless students? (See our brief for more on the strategies that some NYC schools are using to support children experiencing homelessness.)
| The number of NYC elementary schools serving high proportions of homeless students more than doubled between 2013 and 2018. How do you think homelessness affects a young child’s learning and connection to school? Does homelessness impact a student differently when they are older? How can schools better support students who are experiencing homelessness? What other kinds of help, outside of school, might also be important?
| Questions for Policymakers and Advocates: Schools with the highest concentrations of homeless students tend to be located in the City’s poorest communities, including neighborhoods in Harlem, Washington Heights, the South Bronx, and Central Brooklyn. Schools with the lowest proportions of homeless students are clustered in more affluent areas of the city, including neighborhoods in mid and lower Manhattan, the South Slope of Brooklyn, and Northwestern Queens. How can policymakers address the uneven distribution of homeless students across schools? What extra resources could be made available to schools serving the largest concentrations of homeless students? (The Research Alliance identified 139 NYC elementary schools where more than 20 percent of the students were homeless.) How are systems outside of education implicated in the growth of NYC’s homeless student population? (The Research Alliance found that a remarkable 1 in 8 children in the City experience homelessness at some point between kindergarten and the end of fourth grade—many of them for a prolonged period of time.) What action should be taken to reduce the number of children who are homeless?
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