Homelessness is often not a temporary situation for students, and educators may underestimate the effects of homelessness versus even deep poverty, according to a new study of New York City children.
One in 9 students in the Big Apple has been homeless in the past four years, and three-quarters of them were homeless for two to four years, from 2010 to 2014, found researchers at the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness there.
Homeless students in the study were significantly more likely than poor students with homes to change schools midyear, attend schools far from where they lived, and have poor academic outcomes. For example, in Morningside Heights, one Manhattan neighborhood, the high school dropout rate was less than 1 percent for students who were not poor, 6 percent for poor-but-housed students—and 25 percent for homeless students.
