NYC, NY –
At least 146,000 New York City students—about one in every eight children enrolled in the public schools—experienced homelessness during the 2023–24 school year, according to a new study from the Advocates for Children of New York.
Of these students, 54% were “doubled-up,” or temporarily sharing the housing of others because of a loss of housing or economic hardship, and 41% (more than 60,000 students) spent time in City shelters.
The new data, obtained from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) by AFC, show that the number of students in temporary housing rose last year, relative to 2022–23, in each of the City’s 32 community school districts. As in prior school years, students experiencing homelessness were particularly concentrated in upper Manhattan, the southwest Bronx, and parts of northeast and central Brooklyn; in both the Bronx and Manhattan, nearly one in six students did not have a permanent place to call home.
While last year saw a significant uptick in the number of students living in shelter, student homelessness is a longstanding challenge for New York City Public Schools (NYCPS). This past school year, 2023–24, was the ninth consecutive school year in which more than 100,000 students were identified as homeless—meaning that children who were in kindergarten the first year the City hit the ignominious 100,000 threshold have now started high school; the only school system they have ever known is one in which there are more students without a permanent place to call home than there are seats at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field combined.
“Student homelessness has skyrocketed over the past decade, but right now, districts receive no additional per-pupil funding from the State to help meet the educational needs of students in temporary housing,” said Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York.
“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.
