Students Experiencing Homelessness
By: Deanna C. Childress, Ph.D.
Published On: February 21, 2025
With children making up roughly one-fifth of the homeless population, education policy must address support and resources for these students and for schools. In this blog post, we explore the data on students experiencing homelessness in Missouri.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) takes an annual snapshot of people experiencing homelessness every January. HUD’s most recent report—released December 27, 2024–-shows that the percentage of people designated as homeless across the United States increased by 18 percent from January 2023 to January 2024, reaching the highest level on record at 770,000 people.
When thinking of people experiencing homelessness, it’s easy to think of those seen living out on the streets. However, the majority (64.5%) of people classified as homeless in the 2024 HUD report were sheltered rather than unsheltered.
Children Comprise Nearly 20% of the Homeless Population in 2024; HUD 2024 U.S. Homelessness for Children and Adults by Shelter Type
Additionally, more than one-third (34%) of the population experiencing homelessness in January 2024 were families with children. Within this group, children under the age of 18 made up 57 percent of the total, which includes parents who are under age 18. Parents over 18 made up 43 percent of the total.
When looking at the entire population of people classified as homeless in January 2024, children made up almost 20 percent of the entire homeless population. We provide a figure that shows a breakdown of these homelessness counts by shelter type and by age category.
What Do We Know About Students Experiencing Homelessness?
With children making up roughly one-fifth of the homeless population, education policy must address support and resources for these students and for schools. In Missouri, this policy is covered under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act (42 U.S.C. § 11434a(6); revisor.mo.gov). The statute identifies homeless children and youth as those who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.
McKinney-Vento Homeless Act (MVHA) data is a collection of demographic information on students experiencing homelessness. The data is collected by local educational agencies (LEAs) and reported annually to the U.S. Department of Education. The data is used to calculate the amount of funding allocated for serving homeless students under Part A of Title I. States may consider the count of homeless students in a district when making Title I subgrant awards.
MVHA data from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Data Express tool indicates that the total population of homeless students enrolled in public schools across the U.S. increased from 1.2 million students during the 2021–22 school year to 1.4 million students during the 2022–23 school year (an increase of 14% or 200,000 students).
In Missouri, the number of students identified as homeless in the MVHA data also increased, but more modestly from 32,969 students in 2021–22 to 34,565 students in 2022–23 (a 4.8% increase of roughly 1,600 students). The increase across the country in overall homelessness seen in the January 2024 HUD report suggests that even more students may be identified as homeless across the country and in Missouri during the 2023–24 school year.
How to support students experiencing homelessness?
Source: Both charts retrieved from https://eddataexpress.ed.gov/dashboard/homeless/2022-2023?sy=2955&s=798 Feb 2025.
Continuing to monitor students who are designated as homeless is critical to making sure proper resources are provided for these students and their families. Not surprisingly, students without stable housing tend to have higher rates of chronic absenteeism. A presentation from the Fall 2023 Missouri Regional McKinney-Vento Summit highlighted that 34.7% of homeless children and youth were chronically absent, compared to 20.0% of all students.
It is also important to provide appropriate academic support for students experiencing homelessness: ED data in the accompanying figures shows that students experiencing homelessness are less proficient in math and reading than all students across the state. Whether due to chronic absenteeism or other factors, homelessness is tied to academic challenges for students and schools that serve these students. Therefore, it is critical for schools to have data on homelessness to be able to provide and recommend supports that will help students be successful.
Data sources for this blog post include:
https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/3031/pit-and-hic-data-since-2007/
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahar.html
https://dese.mo.gov/quality-schools/student-support-services/homeless-children-youth
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