Homeless Education

Homeless children and youth are defined as individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, and include children and youth who meet any of the following criteria:

• share the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason

• live in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to a lack of alternative adequate accommodations

• live in emergency or transitional shelters

• are abandoned in hospitals

• have a primary night time residence that is a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, or

• live in a car, park, public space, abandoned building, substandard housing, bus or train station, or similar setting

Pursuant to the McKinney-Vento Act, an unaccompanied youth includes a homeless child or youth not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian.

Additionally, pursuant to Federal and State law, migratory children who are living in circumstances described above are also considered homeless.