印记 | About one in every eight New York City public school students — nearly 146,000 children — experienced homelessness during the 2023-24 school year, 数据 released late last year from the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New York has revealed.

That figure, a 23% jump from the year before, marks the ninth consecutive year that more than 100,000 students were identified as homeless. They included children living in hotels, motels and shelters, or temporarily sharing housing belonging to others.

The record numbers highlight the city’s ongoing affordable housing crisis and the critical need for schools to offer extra support for these students, said Jennifer Pringle, director of the nonprofit’s Learners in Temporary Housing Project.

“The city should really focus its efforts on making sure these young people who are in temporary housing now — who struggle with regular attendance, who struggle with making academic progress — get the needed support and services so they can thrive and graduate from high school,” Pringle said.

This is one of the biggest disadvantages that homeless students face, advocates say: Parents are often put in a difficult position of choosing between uprooting their child or spending hours on transportation getting them to school.

“Almost 20% of students in shelters transfer schools mid-year, which is not surprising when almost 40% are being placed in a different borough from where the kids go to school,” Pringle said.

Along with a chronic lack of affordable housing in the city, the increasing number of homeless students is being partly driven by the influx of immigrant families and asylum-seekers arriving in New York in recent years, according to Advocates for Children.

But Pringle cautioned against simplifying the problem, noting that the rising numbers predate recent immigration.

“Family and student homelessness is a long-standing issue here in New York City,’’ she said.

The nonprofit’s 数据 showed dire outcomes for students in unstable housing, including profound impacts on students’ academic success. In particular, students living in shelters dropped out of school at triple the rate of housed students. Additional studies have shown that those who don’t receive a high school diploma are four and a half times more likely to experience homelessness as adults, Pringle said.