NYC’s Homeless Students Grow To 104K, Even Amid Enrollment Dip: Study

NEW YORK CITY — Even as New York City’s public school enrollment dipped last year, its number of homeless students grew by thousands, according to a new study.

Homeless students numbered 104,000 during the 2021-2022 school year, a study released Wednesday by Advocates for Children of New York found.

The city had 101,000 homeless students in the previous school year, roughly one out of every 10, the study found.

And its homeless student population has hovered in six digits for seven consecutive years, according to the study.

“If these 100,000 children made up their own school district, it would be a district larger than 99.5% of all other districts nationwide,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, in a statement.

Homelessness has been a persistent problem for the city, and advocates worry a 20,000-plus influx of asylum seekers will only place further strains to an already-burdened shelter system.

Roughly 29,000 students lived in city shelters last year, according to the study.

Another 69,000 were counted as “doubled up,” meaning they temporarily share the housing of others, the study found.

And about 5,500 were completely unsheltered, living in cars, parks or abandoned buildings, according to the study.

Homeless students were concentrated in districts in The Bronx, Upper Manhattan, Brownsville and Bushwick, the study found.

The numbers show the city and state need to step up, said Letasha Betancourt, an advocate with VOCAL-NY's Homelessness Union who lived in a shelter with two special needs kids during the pandemic.

"My experience in the shelter showed me you have to fight on your own, but it shouldn't be like that," she said in a statement. "We need our state and city to do better.”

Read the study here.