10.30.2019 | Coalition for the Homeless | One of every 10 New York City public school students was homeless during the 2018-2019 school year. New data released by Advocates for Children of New York show that 114,085 NYC students lived in shelters or doubled-up with family or friends, a number virtually unchanged since the prior year’s grim record. Homeless children often struggle to keep up with their stably housed classmates as they grapple with challenges such as long commutes to school and shelter transfers as well as too many missed school days. The constant stress of homelessness is also associated with greater behavioral and academic difficulties, which have lasting ramifications. Read article
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AFC in the News
10.30.2019 | Bronx Justice News | The number of city students identified as homeless has increased by more than 70 percent over the last decade, despite a half percentage point decrease from the 2017-2018 school year, according to the report.
At least 36,679 public students in the Bronx were counted among the homeless, the data shows.
“This problem is immense,” aid Kim Sweet, Executive Director project of Advocates for Children of New York, which oversaw the homelessness tally. “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.” Read article
10.29.2019 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle | Nearly one in 10 Brooklyn students were homeless during the course of the 2018-2019 school year, according to new data released Monday. But in one school district, that number was closer to one in five.
Officials at Advocates for Children of New York — the group that spearheads the annual report — say District 23, which encompasses Ocean Hill, Brownsville and parts of East New York, had the second-highest concentration of homeless students citywide. Of a total 9,290 enrolled students, 2,075 lacked stable housing during last school year.
“More than one out of every five students in District 23 experienced homelessness last year,” Randi Levine, policy director at AFC, told the Brooklyn Eagle. “That means that many of these children experienced the trauma of housing loss and, many times, of domestic violence, which is one of the driving factors of homelessness in New York City.”
Districts 17 (East Flatbush and Crown Heights), 19 (East New York) and 20 (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Borough Park) had the highest sheer numbers of homeless students in the borough, though the numbers were lower than in District 23 in terms of concentration. Read article
10.29.2019 | SI Live | The New York State Technical and Education Assistance Center for Homeless Students, a project of Advocates for Children of New York (AFC), released the new data of students who experienced homelessness in New York State and New York City during the 2018-2019 school year. Read article
10.29.2019 | NY Metro Parents | As Davis explains, it is especially important for families making lower incomes and families whose native language is not English to understand their parental rights. Many of these families, however, don’t have the means to pay retainers and fees, according to Ashley Grant, supervising staff attorney at Advocates for Children in New York City. But these fees, she says, should not prevent parents from seeking assistance.
For example, families can reach out to Advocates for Children, which is just one of several organizations in the city that connects families with lower incomes to legal resources. Some law firms will take on cases regardless of family income. As Krooks points out: “We’ll take on cases like this because we went to law school to help people.” When a lawyer helps a family win a case in New York, the firm can have their attorney’s fees reimbursed by the Department of Education, at no cost to the family. Read article
10.28.2019 | CBS New York | According to a new report by Advocates for Children of New York, more than 114,000 students in the city were homeless last school year, a number that has increased more than 70% in the last decade. The report was generated from information submitted to the state education department.
“If the students who were homeless in New York City made up their own school district, it would be one of the 30 largest school districts in the nation,” said Randi Levine, policy director of Advocates for Children of New York. “It’s double the size of the entire Boston public school system.” Read article
10.28.2019 | NY1 | More than 114,000 students were homeless in New York City in the last academic year. Put another way, that's one in every ten children in the city's public schools, according to a report from Advocates for Children.
"Over the past decade, the number of New York City students who are homeless has increased by 70%. This past year we did see a decrease of about half a percentage point, but the number has remained stubbornly high, tipping 100,000 for the fourth consecutive year," says Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children.
Nearly 74,000 of the homeless students were “doubling up,” meaning they stayed with relatives or family friends. Another 34,000 lived in shelters. Read article
10.28.2019 | NY Post | Citing data from the state Education Department, Advocates for Children of New York found that 114,085 public and charter students — or 1 in 10 — identified as homeless. Of those, 34,000 resided in city shelters and 73,750 were living in temporary housing with relatives, friends or other acquaintances.
The number of homeless city students has exploded by 70 percent in the last decade, the report found. “This problem is immense,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s executive director. “The number of New York City students who experienced homelessness last year — 85 percent of whom are black or Hispanic — could fill the Barclays Center six times.” Read article
10.28.2019 | Chalkbeat NY | One in 10 New York City students lacked stable housing last school year, according to new data released Monday. There were 114,085 homeless students at district and charter schools—numbers that speak to the scope of the crisis, even as they were down slightly over the previous school year, according to an Advocates For Children report.
“This problem is immense,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates For Children, in a statement. “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.”
The advocacy group compiled state education department data from the 2018-19 school year and found the number of students reported as homeless was down by 574 children year over year. It’s unclear what caused the minimal drop. The number of homeless students — defined as children in shelters or doubling up with family, friends, or others — has steadily increased since the 2014-2015 school year. Numbers released last year, which looked at the 2017-2018 school year, set a record-high for the number homeless city students and represented an increase of more than 3,000 homeless students from the previous year. Read article
10.28.2019 | Queens Daily Eagle | Nearly 20,300 Queens school children experienced homelessness last year, according to an examination of Department of Education enrollment data by the organization Advocates for Children of New York. Overall, more than 114,000 New York City students experienced homelessness during the 2018-2019 school year.
“This problem is immense. The number of New York City students who experienced homelessness last year — 85 percent of whom are Black or Hispanic — could fill the Barclays Center six times,” said AFC Executive Director Kim Sweet.
At least 20,298 students from Queens’ seven school districts experienced homelessness at some point last school year, the data shows. The highest rates of homelessness occurred in districts with the highest concentrations of people of color. Read article