1 In 5 Brownsville School District Students Are Homeless: Study

BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN — A Brownsville school district has the second highest rate of homeless students in New York City, new data show.

One out of five students in School District 23 — which covers Brownsville and part of Bed-Stuy —doesn't have a permanent home, according to an Advocates for Children of New York analysis that found 10 percent of city students were homeless last year.

"The number of New York City students who experienced homelessness last year—85% of whom are Black or Hispanic—could fill the Barclays Center six times,” said AFC Executive Director Kim Sweet. "The problem is immense."

AFC data show 2,075 School District 23 students were homeless during the last school year, when state records show 8,339 students were enrolled. Brooklyn Eagle, first to report the high numbers in Brownsville, reported the number of District 23 students was 9,290.

About one in 10, or 114,085, of the city's district and charter school students were identified as homeless in the 2018-19 school year, the report found.

The "stubbornly high" total reflects a more than 70 percent increase in student homelessness over the last decade even though the school system's homeless population shrank by about 600 kids compared to the prior year, the nonprofit said.

The numbers show one dimension of a citywide homelessness crisis that has kept roughly 60,000 people in shelters each night in recent years. Advocates and officials have blamed the problem on a number of factors including domestic violence and a dearth of affordable housing.

Homelessness can have dire effects on how students perform in school, advocates say. Fewer than a third of homeless students can read proficiently, a rate more than 20 percentage points worse than kids with permanent housing, according to Advocates for Children.

Moreover, just 57 percent of all homeless students and fewer than half of those in shelters graduate high school, the group says, while the citywide rate is about 76 percent.

Advocates praised the Department of Education for taking further steps to support homeless students. The agency has made "critical investments" in those kids by providing them transportation, social workers and help connecting to other services, department spokesperson Miranda Barbot said.

"We're committed to serving these students and families," Barbot said in a statement, "by providing the programs and resources they need to have access to a continuous, high-quality education."

Read Patch's citywide coverage of the report here.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.