Marginalized communities are facing the brunt of student homelessness
Elizabeth Sutter has experienced how difficult it is to find a place to live. She was homeless in 2017 while pursuing her bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College.
Sutter’s relationship with her family was rough and prompted her to find a place elsewhere to live. She found help from a faculty member at her school but had to alternate between shelters and a friend’s house, so she would not live on the streets.
“You gotta do what you gotta sometimes do,” Sutter said.
Now that she is stable, Sutter realizes she does not want to experience such instability again. However, the reality is more complicated for someone experiencing homelessness while they pursue their education.
“I had to face those situations of not having money, having to jump turnstiles, being at risk of getting caught and going to jail,” said Sutter, one of the co-chairs of the Youth Action Board, which shares their lived experiences to make a change on essential issues like youth homelessness.
The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) counted approximately 47,000 individuals in the shelter system in June 2022. Families with children are a significant portion of people in the city’s shelter system ---15,000 of the 47,000. And the majority of the families are Black and Latinx.
In addition, 12,000 children in the system are school-aged and may be pursuing their education in the city’s public school system. The system serves roughly one million students in total.
During the 2021-2022 school year, 104,000 children experienced homelessness, according to Advocates for Children, a nonprofit organization that works to create better educational outcomes for students. And for the past decade, that number has trended upward.
The city saw its most significant increase in the 2017-2018 school year, with 114,659 students unhoused in both charter and public schools. Except for one year, the numbers have remained high.
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“The impact of the pandemic in terms of economic hardships, illnesses, death, all these things contributed to housing instability,” said Jennifer Pringle, a project manager for Advocates for Children.
For many homeless students, the lack of housing, access to the internet, and money can prevent them from getting an education. Students experiencing homelessness can register for school despite having only some documents like their immunization records or proof of residence, according to the Mckinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a law passed in 1987 that provides assistance to individuals who lack a fixed and adequate night-time residence. The law also provides transportation free of charge and allows students to attend the same school they attended when they first became homeless, despite residing in another location.
However, Pringle says these requirements still have loopholes that may not work for every family.
“Absenteeism is a big issue, particularly for students in shelters,” Pringle said. “Some shelters are far away from school, there are issues with buses being set up, and some parents have to choose whether to drop their children off or go to work.”
In areas like the South West Bronx, where more than half of the population is Black and Latinx, rates of student homelessness are higher than in other boroughs. One in five students were in temporary housing.
Farah Despeignes, a former teacher and president of the New York City Coalition for Educating Families in the Bronx, works to empower parents with children in the public school system. Despeignes said she is disheartened by the lack of urgency among elected officials to find solutions.
“I have a problem with the government that doesn't take at its heart the most vulnerable of us to say, you know, these people have the least, therefore, they need the most support,” Despeignes said. “It's like you realize that this system is not designed to really be inclusive and to really help people. The system has you on your own. If you can make it, good for you. If you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, good for you. And if you cannot, it’s a ‘well, go to hell’ kind of thing.”
Advocates for Children has called on the city to fulfill their promises. According to the organization, the city has committed to hiring 100 shelter-based DOE community coordinators to help families navigate the school system, resolve barriers to regular attendance, and connect students in the shelter with needed support. However, the organization said the shelter coordinators have yet to be hired. A spokesperson for the DOE did not respond to a request for comment.
In March, Mayor Eric Adams added $99 million to cover the costs of homeless shelters, according to the Independent Budget Office. However, the office predicts that even more funding is necessary going into 2023 and beyond.
More money is still needed for homeless outreach and housing voucher programs. This came to light after the eviction moratorium put in place at the height of the coronavirus pandemic ended. The additional funding needed for homeless shelters, outreach, and housing vouchers will total about $200 million, in 2023, and about $260 million annually, beginning in 2024.
As a result, Sutter, along with her colleague Lyndon Hernandez, have been working hard to ensure politicians hear those currently unhoused. The YAB created a project called Opportunity Starts at Home, which is to fix federal housing solutions by bridging the gap between renter incomes and rising housing costs.
Both Sutter and Hernandez, who also experienced homelessness at a young age, believe that their advocacy will continue to change lives and help those who are going through the system as they once did.
“When you have people who have been through the same thing, went through the highs and lows, and have the best interest of heart to advocate, it makes the youth feel heard,” Sutter said.
“I firmly believe that because of advocacy, my personal advocacy experience, I want to encourage other young people to be advocates in whatever capacity that may be,” Hernandez said.
