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At the end of 2004, 1,200 homeless families were living in emergency family shelters funded by MA Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA). A single mother headed most of these families. These 1,200 families contained 2,400 children between birth and 18 years of age. Of these children, 1,200 were between birth and five years of age.
But the homeless families in DTA-funded shelters are only part of the story of family homelessness.
Although DTA does track the number of families who are denied shelter, no State agency counts the families who have no fixed residence and are on the move from motel room to car to campground.
The extent of this phenomenon is reflected in data collected and analyzed by the Mass. Department of Education in cooperation with the U.S. Centers on Disease Control for the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This data shows that approximately 41,000 school-aged children and youth are homeless at any point in time (a conservative estimate, due to a variety of factors). Given that there are equal numbers of school-aged and younger-than-school-aged homeless children in Massachusetts* at least another 41,000 homeless children are younger than school age, for a total of at least 82,000 homeless children and youth in the Bay State. This data suggests that at least 1 out of every 24 Massachusetts children are homeless at any given time, and an even higher proportion of Massachusetts children experience homelessness over the course of a year.
While often not categorized as serving homeless families, shelters serving victims of domestic violence (DV) are funded by private donations and MA Department of Social Services (DSS). 1,488 children under the age of 6 were served in MA domestic violence residential programs in FY 2002**. Domestic violence shelters usually have 90-day lengths of stay because of their funding limitations. These families often end up in DTA-funded family shelters after their time in the DV shelter.
* ”Situation Critical: Meeting the Housing Needs of Lower-Income Massachusetts Residents,” p. 9, UMASS Boston, McCormack Institute, Center for Social Policy (2000).
**http://nieer.org/docs/index.php?DocID=57
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