Number of homeless students in US hits record high
The number of homeless students in public schools reached a record high in the 2013-2014 school year, according to data by the US Department of Education.
The figure reached a total of 1.36 million twice that of the time before the 2008 economic recession, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
“One of the things we note during recessions is that young families and kids tend to be the ones who go into poverty first, almost like a canary in a coal mine,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus Campaign for Children, an advocacy group. “But also in the back end, kids are the last to recover. Because this recession was because of housing, it’s been particularly bad for kids.”
The count showed an eight-percent decrease compared to the previous year.
The figure was announced despite the funding many schools across the United States receive to tackle the issue.
The Department of Education distributed $61.8 million for homeless students in the fiscal year 2006. The amount fell slightly to $61.7 million by 2013, then increased to $65 million in 2014.
This, however, has failed to decrease the number of such students, on the rise since 2009.
More than 310,000, or 23 percent of the total number, were recorded in the most populous state California, followed by New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Washington, Kentucky and Missouri.
The thing about kids who have really troublesome home lives — not just with homelessness but other things, too — is that they have this defeated look on their faces, because they’re trying, and it’s not working,” said Sonya Shpilyuk, an English teacher at Watkins Mill High School in Maryland’s Montgomery County. “They’re tired, and they’re hungry, and it’s stressful because they don’t know where they’re going after school.”
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