For most families, late summer means going back-to-school shopping, making supply lists, and looking forward to the first day of school. For families experiencing homelessness, those same weeks bring a different kind of preparation that involves figuring out how a child will get to school from a shelter across town, wondering how long they can keep sleeping on a family member’s couch, or deciding whether there’s $30 to spare for a backpack when rent, gas, and diapers are already competing for the same dollars.
Backpacks, notebooks, uniforms, and laptops…these back-to-school lists assume every family has cash to spare and somewhere to keep the supplies once they’re bought. Families juggling shelter stays, motel rooms, or a relative’s already crowded apartment often have neither. Reliable internet and a working computer are often the hardest pieces to come by, which increasingly means missed assignments and less classroom participation before a student has even finished their first week.
Homelessness rarely means staying in one place, and every move increases the likelihood of transferring schools. Each new school means new teachers, a different pace of instruction or curriculum, and records that take weeks to catch up. This is instructional time that a student never gets back. None of this happens without an emotional cost. Children experiencing homelessness carry a steady undercurrent of anxiety about where they’ll sleep, whether their family will stay together, and whether they’ll see the same classmates in the future. That stress often becomes apparent in the classroom as trouble concentrating and difficulty with peer relationships, behavior that’s easy for an unfamiliar teacher to misinterpret.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. Students experiencing homelessness experience chronic absenteeism from school at close to double the rate of the overall student population. The gap in outcomes tracks closely behind it; for example, chronically absent students experiencing homelessness in New York City were held back a grade at more than three times the rate of homeless students who attended regularly, and only 12% reached proficiency on state assessments, compared with 38% of those who weren’t chronically absent. Left unaddressed over the years, that gap widens and becomes harder to reverse; chronically absent students are measurably less likely to ever enroll in postsecondary education, carrying the disruption of a single unstable school year into a young person’s entire educational trajectory.
At Family Promise, we see these challenges play out every day. We know a housing crisis doesn’t just affect where a family sleeps; it impacts a child’s ability to learn, attend school consistently, and maintain the routines that support academic success. This is why our sites work closely with school systems to support children’s educational outcomes and family stability. The McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program requires every school district to designate a local homeless education liaison who is responsible for identifying students experiencing homelessness in the district and reducing educational barriers for these students. Partnerships between Family Promise sites and homeless education liaisons and other school personnel ensure that a family’s housing crisis can be identified quickly, and children can be supported to minimize trauma and disruption to their education.
For example, Family Promise of Southern Delaware contracts directly with nearby school districts to identify and assist children and their families who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability and helps with past rent, utility bills, security deposits, or other barriers to stable housing. They have already helped over 30 families in 2026 through this collaboration.
The strong relationship Family Promise of Escambia County, Florida, has built with its local school district has meant that school registration, transportation, and class assignments for children served by Family Promise are smooth and streamlined, getting resolved after just one interaction between the family and the school.
Across our national network of nearly 180 sites, Family Promise sites coordinate closely with school systems, establishing direct referral processes when a student is identified as experiencing homelessness, participating in school professional development trainings and community meetings, hosting school personnel at their sites, operating afterschool programs, and inviting school officials to serve on Family Promise boards. They deliver school supplies at back-to-school time, such as backpacks and uniforms, so students can start the school year with everything they need to succeed.
Every child deserves the chance to start the school year focused on learning and not worry about where they are sleeping. When families have stable housing, children can attend school consistently, build relationships, and ensure a strong academic future. That’s why Family Promise works every day to help families regain stability before a housing crisis becomes an educational one. Learn more about our programs, support a Family Promise site near you, and join us in ensuring that every child has an equal opportunity to succeed.
