The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) supports homeless students with its Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) office, a federally funded program.

Funds allocated toward ECYEH are used for staffing to train school personnel in 300 public district and charter schools and provide direct services like uniforms, transportation, mentoring, summer programming, school supplies, and more to better support students experiencing homelessness.

This paper shares data recently published by the SDP and the Pennsylvania Department of Education using School Year (SY) 2022-23 data — the best publicly available source of data. The report offers insight for decision makers about the prevalence of student homelessness, challenges, and recommendations.

The SDP’s American Rescue Plan funds (ARP) (the primary source of funding for this critical work since 2020) have expired and the new capacity and supports for students will disappear on June 30, 2025. No plans have been developed to build on or continue this support; the School District informed advocates that available state funding is not adequate to support homeless students. 

A new report from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) shows the increase in young children experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania.

Highlights include:

• Overall, the PDE identified 10,158 children (more than the seating capacity of Palestra Arena in Philadelphia) aged birth to Kindergarten as homeless in 2023, an 11 percent increase from 2022, and an 8 percent increase from 2020.
  
• These young children represent 22 percent of all of Pennsylvania’s homeless children and youth.
  
• Of the four age categories used by PDE, infants and toddlers are the largest group of these young children, representing 35 percent of the 10,158 young children.
  
• The largest percentage increase was in Pre-Kindergarten at 34 percent since 2022 and 49 percent since 2020.

This report seeks to inform practitioners and policy makers about young children experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania. HopePHL’s series called the “Children Cannot Wait Campaign” aims to increase awareness of children and youth experiencing homelessness.

We provide a summary which identifies children in various categories, using recently published data from the PDE of its the Education of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) program.

The Back to School Policy Brief was developed by HopePHL in collaboration with Philly Homes for Youth, Eddie's House, Turning Points for Children, and Valley Youth House.

With additional funding and staffing the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) was able to support 10,000 children and youth who experienced homelessness in the School Year (SY) 2022-2023.

The SDP's American Rescue Plan funds (ARP) are expiring December 31, 2024, and the new capacity and supports for students will disappear. No plans have been developed to build on or continue this support; the School District informed advocates that the new state funding is not adequate for replacing supports for homeless students; the Parker Administration and City Council are talking about this, but no actions have been taken.

Forty-eight charter schools and the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) will lose $3 million in support for the thousands of students and their families who experience homelessness during the school year. The Commonwealth will lose the capacity built by the American Rescue Plan’s $32 million investment.  
 
Despite public hearings, countless meetings, direct discussions with policymakers, and multiple policy briefs framing the issue, no legislative body answered the call to use local funds to support homeless students.  
 
Every legislator on both sides of the aisle says they support homeless students, but only Rep. Ismail Wade Smith-El of Lancaster County and Philadelphia Representative Donna Bullock publicly stepped up to keep the new capacity going.  
 
The Commonwealth and its schools will revert to the federal $5 million for the 500+ school districts and charters to support more than 40,000 children and youth who experience homelessness.  
 
Yes, we are extremely disappointed.  ​

Forty-eight charter schools and the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) stand to lose nearly $3 million in support for the thousands of students and their families who experience homelessness during the school year. HopePHL's school-based programs, such as Thrive, depend on these critical funds to provide the best support to students.
 
These funds were provided by the American Rescue Plan (ARP) via Pennsylvania’s ‘Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness’ (ECYEH) program. The ECYEH program is the only federal education program that removes barriers to enrollment, attendance, and reduces truancy caused by homelessness.
 
The schools used this money to expand their capacity to provide staffing, train school personnel, and provide direct services like short-term housing support, uniforms, transportation, motel stays, summer programming, school supplies, and more.
 
WHAT ADVOCATES ARE ASKING FOR: Advocates are asking Mayor Parker and the Philadelphia City Council Assembly for $3 million in General Funds to continue much of the expanded support for students experiencing homelessness. We are meeting with City Council and members of the Parker Administration to convince them of this needed support.  
 
ACTION ALERT: Contact the Mayor and City Council and ask them to “Fund homeless education by investing $3 million.”   
 
Contact Mayor Parker: Mayor’s correspondence form | Office of the Mayor | City of Philadelphia 
Contact City Council: Use their websites to send your message: Council Members - Philadelphia City Council (phlcouncil.com) 
 
Learn more about our school-based programs here

Check out this month's edition of the HopePHL Perspective, our Policy newsletter to learn how you can help support getting more funds to support students facing homelessness, why collecting data on infants-toddlers experiencing homelessness is important, and upcoming events!

A 10th grade student in one of the schools served by HopePHL was kicked out of his home and reached out for support. He did not have other family or friends to stay with. HopePHL's Thrive program referred him to the emergency shelter at YES, which provided safe housing for the student. During that time, our team provided money for clothing and school supplies so that he was able to keep up with school. At the end of the 21 days, he was able to return home to a diffused situation with his parents.

The story above is just one example of the positive affect the American Rescue Plan’s funding is used to support students experiencing homelessness. Pennsylvania received $32 million from the American Rescue Plan for the Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) program. This program supported 40,000 children and youth in 2022. The funding has paid for activities that increase high school graduation, lower truancy, stabilize housing, and much more.
More than 400 school districts and charters have received the funding but stand to lose it as the APR dollars expire January 31, 2025. Any funds that remain will go back to the Treasury. As of January 31, Pennsylvania still had $7.3 million unspent (see general fund status here) with five months remaining.

Thanks to HopePHL and our allies, United State Senators Robert Casey and John Fetterman responded positively to our request to sign-on to a “Dear Colleague” letter that proposes to extend the obligation deadline by one year for funding made available under section 2001(b)(1) of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, for the purposes of serving homeless children and youth (ARP-HCY).

A problem that Senator Casey can solve is to extend the deadline. We are encouraging Congress to extend the obligation deadline by at least one school year to ensure that all ARP-HCY funds are used strategically to support increasing numbers of students experiencing homelessness. Congress also should increase annual funding for the McKinney-Vento Act’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) funding.

As outlined in the report, Congress should extend the deadline because:
​

• One-quarter of school district homeless liaisons that were surveyed, indicated that they may not be able to obligate all of their ARP-HCY funds by the September 2024 deadline due to a limited amount of time and/or administrative hurdles. An additional 25% of liaisons were unaware their district received ARP-HCY funds, potentially making it difficult to meet spending deadlines. This is also a sign of a greater disconnect between school district homeless liaisons and local educational leadership.

 

• Staff turnover and lack of capacity also emerged as challenges across survey responses. At the state level, there was a nearly 50% turnover rate in the position of State Coordinator for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth from April 2021 to January 2024.

 

• Clarity about the flexible use of these funds was not communicated to States until the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance in September 2023 – more than 2.5 years after the funds were first appropriated, ultimately leaving state and local educational agencies with less than 12 months to obligate ARP-HCY funds.

 

• A longer timeline would allow state education agencies time to reallocate ARP-HCY funds more equitably to communities with unique needs. Of particular concern are rural communities, who have unmet need as a result of broad systemic failures, yet are often left out of these funding opportunities. 

 
This funding has had a transformative effect in the lives of children, youth, and families that have experienced homelessness. Thank you, Senators Casey and Fetterman, for doing what is important to support our homeless students.  

The “State-Level Brief Update – A Call to Action” is brought to you by the Pennsylvania Head Start State Collaboration Office and HopePHL, in partnership with Grace Whitney, PhD. The Update highlights key state-level housing, education, and early childhood sector data regarding young children experiencing homelessness and it expands earlier efforts by including data related to young children in foster care.