• School Mobility: Homelessness is linked with greater odds of changing schools, which can disrupt peer and teacher relationships and overall educational progress.  Students living in shelters are more likely to change schools than both stably housed and doubled-up students. Our research demonstrated that the typical NYC elementary student residing in a shelter for three or more years changed schools at least once between kindergarten and 4th grade, with some students changing schools up to seven times.
• Academic Achievement: Students experiencing homelessness exhibit significantly lower academic proficiency compared to their permanently housed peers. In 2024-25, roughly a third of NYC homeless students in grades 3–8 scored proficient on the ELA and math state exams, compared to two thirds of their stably housed peers. Research in other contexts have found that students experience the most pronounced dips in academic achievement in the same year as the onset of homelessness, and that their overall academic growth slows for the duration of the time they are homeless.

Building on this research, there are other educational indicators (e.g., feelings of school belongingness, self efficacy) that would benefit from more systematic measurement to more fully understand homeless students’ experiences and outcomes.

What Are the Challenges to Supporting Homeless Students?

Effective support for homeless students is frequently hindered by difficulties in identification; a lack of dedicated, comprehensive resources; and structural obstacles.

• Identification Challenges: Identification of homeless students is a pervasive challenge, particularly for students who are living doubled-up. This can deny them important educational rights and services under McKinney-Vento. While in NYC, as in other districts, identification of students in shelters is facilitated by data-sharing agreements between school and municipal shelter systems, doubled-up students are identified when families self-disclose their housing status. Many families and students are reluctant to do so due to stigma and shame and fear that disclosure will lead to unwelcome attention from other agencies, such as immigration or child protective services. 
• Barriers to Comprehensive Support: Districts and schools often struggle to move beyond ensuring education access for homeless students to address deeper academic and socioemotional issues and help meet basic needs. McKinney Vento homelessness liaisons manage identification processes, removing barriers to school access and overseeing service provision for homeless students. Our research and others find that staff often take this on as a secondary responsibility without extra compensation or dedicated time. The burden this places on staff is especially high in the schools serving the largest concentrations of homeless students. A lack of staff capacity makes it harder to build the strong networks with community and agency partners that are needed for the full implementation of integrated service provision under McKinney-Vento. Finally, federal funding restrictions often prohibit school districts from providing families with direct assistance—such as emergency help with rent or covering utility bills)—that could prevent homelessness.
• Challenges to Interagency Coordination: Silos between school districts and social service agencies—worsened by inconsistent eligibility criteria and conflicting priorities—are an impediment to McKinney-Vento implementation. At the federal level, the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employ different definitions of homelessness, with HUD excluding doubled-up students. This creates a service gap where doubled-up families are ineligible for many housing assistance programs. Moreover, district and school staff prioritize educational stability and school attendance, while shelter staff prioritize helping families secure emergency shelter, find permanent housing, and comply with case management requirements. In NYC, these priorities can sometimes be at odds, such as when students are placed in a shelter far from their school.

What Does the Evidence Say About Interventions to Support Homeless Students in NYC?

NYC has pioneered several interventions—some of which rely on interagency coordination and leveraging community-based resources—to mitigate the harmful effects of homelessness on students’ educational experiences and outcomes. Research shows that the following interventions are promising, particularly in terms of improving attendance:

• Every Child and Family is Known: Launched in 2023, Every Child and Family is Known is a relationship-based strategy that connects students in NYC Department of Homelessness Services (DHS) shelters with school-based “caring adults.” The adults help families and students access resources to meet basic material needs as well as connecting them with academic supports. Evaluation of the Bronx pilot showed that elementary students in the program were 20 percentage points less likely to transfer schools midyear and saw an 8.8 percentage point increase in math proficiency, when compared to a group of similar students living in shelter.
• Attendance Matters: This partnership between DHS and NYCPS targeted students with high absenteeism during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years. It relied on coordination between DHS and NYCPS, who were a part of interagency teams that met to review attendance data to prioritize students for intervention. Teams received training in trauma-informed care to collaboratively identify solutions with families. Evaluation of the program found that participating students missed 2.1 to 3.3 fewer days of school annually.
• Bridging the Gap Social Workers: These social workers are dedicated school-based staff who support homeless students. Placed in NYC schools with large proportions of students in shelter, they offer mental health support and build partnerships with local shelters, city agencies, and other community-based organizations to connect students and their families with resources. Schools with a Bridging the Gap Social Worker saw a 1.2 percentage point increase in average attendance rates for students in shelter.
• Community Schools: This approach integrates health and social services into the school building, turning schools into resource and service hubs for students and their families. Evaluation of NYC’s Community Schools initiative found that it produced a decrease in chronic absenteeism and increases in academic achievement and high school graduation. While the initiative was not focused specifically on supporting homeless students, it provides a model for staffing and partnerships that can successfully connect families and students to needed community resources.

Recommendations

Below we provide some recommendations, based on research to date, about how the NYC public school system can better serve students experiencing homelessness. Notably, these strategies rely on dedicated funding to support homeless students and will not be possible without adequate financial resources.

• Expand Identification Training: Research indicates that more training is needed on McKinney-Vento eligibility and identification processes, particularly for doubled-up students. While Students in Temporary Housing (STH) liaisons receive such training in NYC, it is also important to train other staff—such as teachers—who have daily interactions with students and are well positioned to learn details about housing status. Training should focus on understanding which scenarios can count as doubled-up homelessness, and how to have sensitive conversations with families that highlight the potential benefits of being identified as a student in temporary housing.
• Ensure Dedicated Staffing: Policymakers should prioritize funding for school-based staff who are dedicated to supporting homeless students. Research indicates that McKinney-Vento STH liaisons often serve alongside other primary responsibilities, leading to burnout and limiting their capacity. When staff can dedicate their time to supporting homeless students, they are able to build community partnerships and move beyond fulfilling administrative requirements, which results in more comprehensive networks of support for students and families. The Bridging the Gap Social Worker program is an example of a dedicated staffing model that shows promise. 
• Sustain and Scale Relational Supports: Research indicates that strong relationships with school staff can be a protective factor for homeless students. The Every Child and Family is Known model has begun to demonstrate the crucial role that caring adults can play in providing support for homeless students and families. It makes sense to continue developing, testing and refining this program, as the City works to improve opportunities for students in living in shelters.
• Strengthen Interagency Coordination: Improved coordination and data sharing between NYCPS and DHS are a key ingredient to many of the promising interventions highlighted in this brief. Crucially, improved interagency coordination can prioritize shelter placements near a student’s school to promote educational stability and reduce chronic absenteeism. Cross-agency collaboration can also help shelter and school staff understand the different priorities and constraints of their respective departments, build trust, identify ways to break down silos, and streamline the provision of supports to families and students. In addition, improved use and sharing of data across a greater range of social service agencies could lead to more accurate identification of homeless students and allow frontline staff to tailor interventions to better meet students’ needs. Maintaining and enhancing existing data-sharing infrastructure–such as the New Visions data portal–is crucial to continue supporting better outcomes among NYC’s homeless youth.
• Build More Evidence to Inform Practice: More research is needed to understand what changes in policy and practice will best address the longstanding challenges homeless students face. This should include studies of efforts to improve identification, relationship-building with students and families, provision of services and resources, and interagency coordination to better support homeless students. Such studies can pinpoint effective strategies, identify key ingredients for scaling and sustaining successful interventions, and ensure that the system continues to build on promising approaches. 

The challenges homeless students face underscore that schools do not operate in a vacuum, and that there are many factors outside of the classroom that shape students’ educational experiences. While this brief focuses on how schools can better support homeless students, a comprehensive policy response must also prioritize affordable housing and efforts to prevent homelessness from occurring in the first place.