Horizons for Homeless Children
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Horizons for Homeless Children Hails
President's Recognition of Child Homelessness;
Calls for Action to Eliminate Child Homelessness

At President Obama's press conference on March 24th, in response to a question regarding a new report finding that 1 in 50 U.S. children go homeless each year, the President said "I'm heartbroken that any child in America is homeless….Part of the change in attitudes that I want to see here in Washington and all across the country is a belief that it is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.  And so we're going to be initiating a range of programs…to deal with homelessness."

This may be the first time in U.S. history that a sitting president has acknowledged the fact that many of our nation's homeless are in fact children.  President Obama's declaration that "it is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours" is a call to action.  While, as the President noted, we must help homeless families lift themselves out of poverty with jobs, this in itself will not be enough.  We call upon the President and Congress to take the following steps:

  • Dramatically expand the availability of affordable housing, prioritizing homeless families.
  • Ensure that new investments in early education and care - in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 20091 and beyond - reach homeless children, so that those children can continue to grow and develop, and their parents can work.  Head Start providers, already mandated to identify and serve homeless children, need the expertise to carry out that mandate.2 And states must be required to prioritize homeless children when allocating early education subsidies paid with federal funds from the Child Care and Development Block Grant.3
  • Update the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of "homeless," to include children and their families living in motels and in "doubled up" situations, sleeping on the floors and sofas of friends and family members.4
  • Document more accurately the number of homeless children in the U.S.5
  • Establish programs modeled on Horizons for Homeless Children in other cities and states.6
  • Fund the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program at least $200 million for FY10.7

Only by taking these steps will we begin to move towards the day when there are no more homeless children in America.

1 ARRA includes $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start, and $2 billion for Child Care and Development Block Grants. 

2 The "Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007," enacted and signed into law in late 2007, specifies that homeless children are categorically eligible for Head Start services, and requires Head Start agencies to ensure that homeless children are identified and prioritized for enrollment.  The Conference Committee Report states that "The Conferees have included provisions to enhance services for homeless children and increase their participation in Head Start programs. The Conferees encourage the Secretary, in developing and implementing the training and technical assistance system required under this Act, to support activities designed to improve services for homeless children. In providing such services, the Conferees encourage the Secretary to work with organizations specializing in improving services to homeless children in early education programs."

3 The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care prioritizes homeless children in allocating childcare vouchers, paid for primarily with CCDBG funds.

4 There are conflicting definitions of the term "homeless" under federal law. Some statutory definitions of "homeless" include the many "doubled-up" children and families sleeping on sofas and floors in another family's home due to economic hardship, while the definition used by HUD excludes doubled-up families. Legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2007 reauthorizing the Head Start program adopted a definition of "homeless child" that includes children living in doubled-up situations, reiterating a definition previously adopted by Congress in Subtitle B of Title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

5 This goal can be accomplished through a new question on CDC's bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey.  Such a question was part of the YRBS survey administered in Massachusetts in 2005 and 2007. Data from the YRBS administered in Massachusetts analyzed by CDC and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education indicates that there are approximately 56,000 school-aged homeless children and youth in Massachusetts on any given day.  Given that other studies have shown that for every school-aged homeless child or youth there is also a preschool-aged (birth - 5) homeless child, this means that there are more than 100,000 homeless children and youth on any given day.  This data suggests that previous estimates (1.35 million over the course of a year, Urban Institute 1990; 17,505 homeless children in Massachusetts, National Center on Family Homelessness) are in fact under-estimates.  NCFH's data was based on the number of specific homeless children identified and reported by each school district's McKinney-Vento homeless education liaison.  However, this data represents only a partial count of homeless school-aged children in Massachusetts. Only 10,153 school-aged homeless children were identified by school district homeless education liaisons in Massachusetts, as compared to the 56,000 estimate based on the YRBS data.

6 Each year, HHC provides high-quality early education and care and complementary parent support services to 400 homeless children and their families in Boston.  In addition, HHC also provides child development services to 3,000 children each year living in homeless shelters throughout Massachusetts.  All told, HHC has served approximately 20,000 homeless children and their families since 1990.  For further information regarding HHC's program models, please visit www.horizonsforhomelesschildren.org. 

7 This critical program provides funding to help school districts assist homeless children, including young children, to enroll and attend school. Yet despite great need, only 6% of school districts currently receive this funding.