The number of school-aged children experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia has increased over the past few years, according to data from the School District — and the numbers likely are even higher, due to workarounds such as couch surfing and temporary housing.
Housing insecurity and its related struggles can make school much more difficult for these students, explained Shani Meacham, the vice president of Valley Youth House, an organization in Philly committed to helping students experiencing homelessness.
“When you can’t think about where you’re going to sleep tonight, or if you have a roof over your head tonight, it’s very difficult to focus on the subject matter of what’s happening in the classroom, right?” she said.
Outside factors — such as poverty, lack of clean clothes and lack of access to food — can affect students’ performance in school and their mental health, Meacham added.
During the 2021-22 school year, 1.9% of children were identified as experiencing homelessness, with the number increasing to 2.5% for the 2022-23 school year and 3.1% for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the most recent data from the School District of Philadelphia.
Of these numbers, many students reported a “doubled up” living arrangement (i.e., sharing housing with another family) with some students unaccompanied or unsheltered.
The Pa. Department of Education’s definition of homelessness includes the “doubled up” designation so that children in all of these situations will receive proper resources, said Dennis Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
“One of the key challenges is transportation, and that’s the reason that the Department of Education has its own definition for homelessness, which includes people who are living in an emergency ‘doubled up’ situation,” he said. “And the reason for that is that they want to make sure that kids are being made eligible for transportation support to get to the school they’re originally from.”
Experiencing homelessness is one of many issues schoolchildren in Philadelphia face, according to education advocacy group Children First. Especially when combined with issues such as mental health and other financial struggles, children can feel especially burdened when also facing housing insecurity.
The Valley Youth House aims to combat some of these challenges, and provide housing for those students and young adults experiencing homelessness, said Alyssa Weinfurtner, the director of emergency services for the Philly chapter of the organization.
“We have three houses as well as close to 50 units of what we call rapid rehousing,” she said. “So, like tenant-based rental assistance, our other housing programs in this office are also housing programs with young people in scattered state apartments throughout the city.”
Weinfurtner explains the program is unique, as it includes the perspectives of other youth who have had similar experiences.
“So we have two peer advocates, and two case managers,” she said. “Peer advocates are essentially folks with lived experience of homelessness as a young adult, and case managers may have more professional experience. And then we have a supervisor. We’ve since, with outside funding, also been able to add an in-house therapist to our team, as well to help kind of triage and address mental health needs and provide really low-barrier therapy and mental health services.”
She said the Valley Youth House’s teams work within nearly 25 schools — supporting students with everything from counseling services to re-enrolling if they’ve dropped out.
Challenges beyond housing
Weinfurtner said children experiencing homelessness will often struggle with “lower standardized testing scores, higher truancy rates and higher suspension rates.” One of the biggest obstacles children without housing will face is getting to school.
“I think starting with attendance — it’s really just about getting there [to school],” Weinfurtner said, adding that the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act is a big resource in these situations. The act pushes for equal educational and operational resources to address the needs of homeless children and youth.
This can include accounting for transportation needs to and from school, access to their school of origin (or where they may have lived when they were last permanently housed) and access to school programs, such as after-school sports. The act also works to identify homeless children so needs can be addressed.
Weinfurtner explained that, through the McKinney-Vento Act, the Philadelphia school district is able to offer many of these resources.
“That includes assistance with enrollment, assistance with uniforms, transportation to schools, tutoring, and other supportive services as well, but really trying to remove barriers to attendance for young people,” she said.
She explains Valley Youth House and other local organizations provide “wraparound” services for students needing more resources than McKinney-Vento can provide.
Meacham emphasized that many of the reasons for poverty can also compound upon difficulties children already experience while struggling with homelessness. She said this can negatively impact a student’s mental health.
“It is also sometimes the result of loss of employment, illness, chronic illness, and/or death,” she said. “And so I think that that’s the point. These are families that could be any of us with a lost paycheck or two. And so young people experience it all in various forms. So we are seeing an increase in mental health concerns.”
Culhane explained families experiencing homelessness will sometimes move to shelters or homes farther from the child’s original school. He said these situations, and the general toll of homelessness, can affect children’s mental and physical health.
“Oftentimes, kids end up acting out because they’re insecure and they don’t really have the kind of structure that would support them as students,” he said. “They miss out on peer engagement as well as school, and they’re often in an environment that has not been home to them. So, there’s a tremendous amount of instability and that has its own consequences.”
Another issue that may affect how resources are allocated is racial disparity, said DeMarcus Jenkins, an assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.
“Of the more than 1.5 million students across the country who are experiencing homelessness, a significant portion of that is Black families,” he said. “They represent over 50%, maybe closer to 60%, of families living in homelessness.”
“I think it’s important to understand that there is a large population of Black families experiencing homelessness and how that also intersects with housing segregation and school segregation and how Black families are often relegated to under-resourced or impoverished schools,” Jenkins noted.
He adds McKinney-Vento lacks discussion about race, which means there may not be as many targeted resources.
“McKinney-Vento does not directly discuss race. And I think the absence of talking about race in McKinney-Vento does not allow for solutions that are specific and targeted for specific populations,” he said.
Lasting impacts
Jenkins explained children may be less inclined to tell teachers or trusted adults about their experience with homelessness out of fear. He said this can especially affect Black students.
“Students who experience homelessness are often hesitant to report that to the school teachers in districts due to fear of being reported to child protective services,” he said. “And there’s a long history of Black children being ripped from their parents.”
Meacham said experience with housing insecurity can also create chronic and long-lasting trauma for schoolchildren and young adults who may have been dealing with these challenges for a long time.
“We’ve had young people who showed up to us when they were 18, and we found out that they spent two years of high school living behind a dumpster, because they were afraid to let anybody know,” she said. “So it is a very traumatizing situation and time in a young person’s life, if they have to experience that, and that’s why we designed all these methods of ways for them to get the support they need and have an entry way into stability for housing.”
There are also disparities in the academic performance of those that experience homelessness, Jenkins said.
“We know that close to 70% of high school students who experience homelessness perform below grade level according to state reading assessments and 80% below grade level in math,” he said. “So we already know that there are these disproportionate outcomes academically. We also know that students who experience homelessness are almost five times more likely to not graduate high school.”
Students may also struggle with their mental health and be unable to participate in beneficial, outside programs that can better their lives.
“These things play a role in their ability to engage in the classroom, but then also across the school community overall, because you often have students who are unable to engage in extracurricular activities or other activities because of the issues that they face at home with housing insecurity,” he said.
Jenkins adds these challenges will also impact children experiencing homelessness throughout their lives.
“So we know from the data that experiencing homelessness has a direct impact on students’ long-term well-being, some of their access to high-paying jobs and also their access to social mobility and being able to move themselves and their families out of homelessness,” he said.
The solution
While numbers are rising in recent data, part of it is due to increased efforts to identify children experiencing these issues, Meacham said.
“So the number grows,” she said. “But it’s not that it’s fully a new number. The number grows because we’re able to fully identify what the problem is and when. And it’s only when you fully identify the issue and really what the need is that you can identify the solutions that are going to help.”
For students still struggling, Weinfurtner said the solution is multifaceted.
“We’re really just asking for continued funding to have some consistency of the services available,” she said. “Some of our contracts for this and these partnerships are ending June 30.”
She explained one of the most important considerations is maintaining “consistent” services for these students.
“It’s also the consistency of the service piece for young people that is so important,” she said. “They’ve had so many disruptions in relationships in their lives, and a lot of trust that’s been broken, so the first step for us is always working to rebuild that trust, even if it’s maybe perceived from fear or stigma.”
She highlights the difficulty of those students who aren’t identified as experiencing homelessness, but are couch surfing or facing some other kind of housing insecurity.
“80 percent of those youth and children are couch surfing, doubled up or overcrowded, meaning, for the majority of them, they’re not eligible for the Office of Homeless Services’ housing interventions, unless they’re entering shelter,” she said. “So it’s super important to have more homeless-prevention assistance that would be able to address that population.”
She adds much of the aid is only available in dire situations. This makes it more difficult for older school children struggling with housing insecurity to rent or find affordable housing.
Jenkins emphasizes the importance of explicitly extending resources, particularly within the McKinney-Vento law, as well.
“What ends up happening is schools that are in districts that are already under-resourced or serving higher numbers of students experiencing homelessness don’t often have the resources to fully support these students,” he said. “So, I think there’s also a need for districts to really think differently around school budgets, for districts to really consider how they prioritize the needs of students who are experiencing homelessness in terms of helping to close that gap.”
Weinfurtner said further data and research is important to better assess student’s needs.
“It’s really an investment before the crisis happens, before somebody is on the street or needing to enter shelter,” she said. “We have the data. We know that those folks are there, and that’s the kind of primary population that we’re talking about here. How do we intervene? It won’t only save our city and the community money. It’s also better for folks. It reduces that risk of trauma.”
Culhane adds addressing housing affordability is also a prime solution – as this most directly helps families who are struggling to find a stable living situation.
“The key resource that most very low-income families need is assistance with their housing costs,” he said. “Most families who are low income are severely cost-burdened – that’s a phrase that the federal government uses to suggest that they’re paying more than half of their income on rent.”
He said federal housing subsidies are the “number one resource” the government can provide to reduce homelessness and improve housing stability and affordability. However, he acknowledges the process of providing these can be tricky – as there are often long wait times and difficulty navigating families through available resources.
Meacham said she is hopeful. Although there are challenges, she said the coordination between the School District of Philadelphia, organizations and government agencies is encouraging.
“That level of coordination between the systems of understanding and needing to address this issue for the students of Philadelphia – I don’t think we’ve seen it quite to this extent in other areas of programming,” she said. “And I think that we can show that this can work if we are aware of an issue and work together to identify a solution.”
