146,000 NYC Students Were Homeless Last Year: New Data
NEW YORK CITY — According to a new study from the Advocates for Children of New York, at least 146,000 students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade were homeless last school year.
That amounts to about one in eight children citywide, with higher concentrations in central Brooklyn, upper Manhattan and the southwest Bronx, the researchers said.
Advocates for Children of New York is an organization that provides free legal and advocacy services for parents dealing with school-related issues in New York City.
The data the group used in the study is gathered by the New York State Education Department.
"It is unconscionable that, year after year, tens of thousands of students in this City don't have a permanent home," said Jennifer Pringle, who is the director of Advocates for Children's Learners in Temporary Housing Project.
According to Advocates for Children of New York, 146,000 is a record number and a 23 percent increase from the year before.
Of these students, 54 percent were "doubled-up," or temporarily sharing the housing of others because of a loss of housing or economic hardship, and 41 percent spent time in city shelters.
And, during the 2022-2023 school year, half of all students in temporary housing and 67 percent of students in shelters were chronically absent — often because the shelter is far from the school they are enrolled in — and students living in shelters dropped out of high school at triple the rate of students in permanent housing, according to the study.
This past school year was the ninth consecutive year with more than 100,000 students who identified as homeless in New York City public schools, according to the researchers.
"Our students who are experiencing homelessness are among our most vulnerable, and it is a continued priority at New York City Public Schools to provide them with the supports and resources they need to succeed in school," Chyann Tull, the deputy press secretary of the NYC Department of Education said.
Those supports include transportation and access to counseling, food, clothing and hygiene supplies, Tull said.
The researchers of the study said that they are now advocating for the state government to increase funding for public schools with students in temporary housing and for the city government to ensure families are placed in shelters near their children's schools, get rid of 60-day shelter stay limits, and address delays in arranging transportation.
Under a new law announced Monday, Mayor Eric Adams is immediately relaxing 60-day shelter stay limits for families with children in grades kindergarten through sixth grade who have already been forced to leave temporary housing once before.
But, there is still more to be done, Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, said.
"School can be the key to breaking the cycle of homelessness, but so many children, especially those in shelters, continue to fall behind," Sweet said.
See the full study here .
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