Putting Homelessness in Context: The Schools and Neighborhoods of Students Experiencing Homelessness

The number of K–12 students experiencing homelessness is increasing across the country. Schools may serve as sources of support and stability for homeless children, but little is known about the types of schools that homeless students attend or about the communities in which they live. We investigate the context of student homelessness in Los Angeles by analyzing student-level administrative data from the Los Angeles Unified School District and publicly available data on neighborhoods and schools from school years 2008–2009 to 2016–2017. Our findings suggest that homeless students tend to be clustered within lower-achieving schools with higher concentrations of disadvantaged student groups and live in neighborhoods with higher concentrated disadvantage. Despite policy provisions to ensure stability, homeless students have high rates of school and residential mobility in the years they are homeless, and mobile students tend to move to less-disadvantaged schools. We conclude with policy implications to strengthen the implementation of the federal McKinney-Vento Act.

Increasing Identification of Homeless Students: An Experimental Evaluation of Increased Communication Incorporating Behavioral Insights

Over 1.5 million students in the United States experience homelessness. These students are entitled to educational support through the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program. However, many homeless students are not identified and therefore never receive this support. Across 1,732 local education agencies in New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York, we conducted a randomized controlled trial of increased email communication incorporating behavioral insights targeting homeless liaison staff in order to increase the identification of homeless students. The intervention had an impact on the mean number of identified homeless students among the treatment local education agencies (3.62, 90% CI [0.32, 6.92], p = .07). The impact remained when outliers with high leverage were removed (1.51 CI [0.24, 2.79], p = .05). Within this sample, our analysis indicates that more than 3,000 additional homeless students were identified with a low-cost, low-intensity, behavioral intervention during the second semester.

Training Homeless Education Liaisons to Support the Academic Needs of Homeless Students

The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to describe how homeless education liaisons use training and resources to support the academic success of homeless students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 local homeless education liaisons in Virginia to determine how they perceive and incorporate training and community resources to encourage the academic success of students experiencing homelessness. Research revealed that they training they received met liaison needs despite needed adaptations to address legislation changes. Implications for leadership are a need to allot necessary time for liaisons to meet needs of students through understanding liaison function and resource availability. Recommendations for assisting liaisons in meeting needs of students are made.

Interventions to support retention and resiliency of homeless students in higher education

Homelessness and housing insecurity is prevalent on college campuses and influences the ability for a student to persist in their degree program (Hallett 2010; Hallett and Crutchfield, 2017). Students struggling with basic needs have lower integration into the academic and social fabric of the institution (Gupton, 2017; Hallett, 2010). Persistence to degree not only helps break the cycles of homelessness and poverty, but also promotes social justice and resiliency. The data collection and analysis sought to answer four research questions. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, framed by the theoretical frameworks of resiliency and social justice theories was this inquiry. The research was conducted at the campus of a regional, public institution within 40 minutes of a major metropolitan area. Interviews of three key administrators and a focus group of academic advisors and survey data of 50 aid administrators at large, public institutions provided the method of data collection to assess the barriers and interventions, if any, for students encountering homelessness while in college. The data analysis found three recurring themes: Education regarding homelessness, resource development and the elimination of barriers. Research from this study underscored the need for interventions to be developed to assist the student to support retention. Additionally, the development of interventions allows faculty and staff to advocate for students while assisting the university in meeting enrollment and graduation goals.