The data, which were obtained from New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) by AFC, show that students in temporary housing—and especially those living in shelter—continue to trail their permanently housed peers on a variety of measures, driving home the urgent need for City and State leaders to act.

Key findings include:

• Nearly half of all students in temporary housing, and 63% of students in shelter, were chronically absent last year, meaning they missed at least one out of every ten school days. At minimum, such rates of absenteeism represent a combined 1.1 million days of lost instructional time.
• One in every five students in shelter transferred schools at least once during the 2024–25 school year, more than four times the transfer rate of permanently housed students. The 12,000 students in shelter who changed schools mid-year not only lost a permanent place to call home, they also lost the stability of a familiar school environment and had to adjust to new teachers, peers, curricula, and routines, often with little advance warning.
• Only 33% of students who were homeless scored proficient on the grades 3–8 English Language Arts (ELA) exam in 2025, compared to 60% of their permanently housed peers—a disparity even larger than the one seen in 2024.

New York City and State must do more to ensure students experiencing homelessness can access a quality education and receive the support they need to succeed in school. One immediate step Governor Hochul and the Legislature can take is to ensure that the final FY 2027 State budget updates the Foundation Aid per-pupil funding formula to add a weight for students who are homeless or in foster care, as proposed by both the Assembly and the Senate in their one-house budgets. At present, Foundation Aid provides no additional resources to help districts address the unique needs of such students, who face barriers above and beyond those associated with poverty. The Assembly’s proposed weight (.65) would be especially helpful, driving an estimated $486M to NYC schools according to the NYC Independent Budget Office, while the Senate’s proposed weight (.12) would bring an estimated $93M.