Homelessness (ESSA Title IX)

The McKinney-Vento Act is designed to address the challenges that homeless children and youths have faced in enrolling, attending, and succeeding in school with a strong emphasis on the importance of school stability for homeless children and youths. Changing schools multiple times significantly impedes a student’s academic and social growth. Therefore, the McKinney-Vento Act calls for school districts to maintain students in their school of origin to promote school stability and greater educational outcomes overall, unless it is not in the student’s best interest.

Under Subtitle B of Title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, § 725, homeless children and youths means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and includes:

1. children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of  housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals;
2. children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings;
3. children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and 
4. migratory children (as defined in § 1309 of the ESSA) who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described in this definition.

In addition, the ESSA removed "awaiting foster care placement" from the definition of “homeless children and youths” December 10, 2016.

National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth

National Center for Homeless Education