By: Scott Schultz
As a Spring 2026 Policy Fellow at Family Promise through the Karabelle Pizzigati Initiative at the University of Maryland, I have been researching how federal housing programs serve families with children experiencing homelessness and housing instability.
The Housing Choice Voucher program helps low-income households afford housing in the private rental market. For many families, a voucher can be the difference between stable housing and homelessness. But families with children are receiving a shrinking share of these vouchers, even as their need for stable housing continues to grow.
This matters because housing instability can have serious consequences for children’s health, development, and education. Children experiencing housing instability are more likely to face physical and mental health challenges, developmental delays, school disruption, and chronic absenteeism. Stable housing is therefore not only a basic family need, but also a foundation for children’s long-term well-being.
One reason families with children can be overlooked is that their homelessness is often less visible. Parents and caregivers will do almost anything to keep their children off the street. Many family shelters are full, and families stay temporarily with others or scrape together money to live in motels while waiting for help. These situations may not look like stereotypical homelessness, but they still create serious instability for children and families.
Federal housing data does not always capture these experiences. HUD focuses on families who are in shelters, unsheltered locations, or connected to formal homeless service systems. In 2025, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data captured 230,666 people in families experiencing homelessness.
A much larger picture emerges when we look at the Department of Education’s data. Because schools identify students in less visible homeless situations, the Department of Education captures many children who may not appear in HUD data. During the 2023–2024 school year, the Department of Education identified approximately 1.5 million children experiencing homelessness.
That gap matters. If families with children are not fully visible in the data, their needs can look smaller than they really are. And when their needs look smaller, they can be easier to overlook when housing assistance is prioritized.
This disconnect shows up in the Housing Choice Voucher program. In 2009, families with children made up about 52 percent of Housing Choice Voucher recipients. By 2025, they made up only 36 percent. The total number of vouchers serving families with children has also declined. Between 2002 and 2022, more than 260,000 vouchers that had previously served families with children were no longer serving this population.
This decline is not happening because families need less help. It is happening in a system where voucher funding has not kept up with need, waitlists are long or closed, and federal rental assistance reaches only about one in four families who qualify. As a result, many families with children remain stuck in unstable and dangerous situations while waiting for assistance that may never come.
Reversing this trend will require more than a single policy change. It requires a broader shift in how we measure, prioritize, and support families with children.
First, housing agencies should give greater priority to families with children, especially those experiencing homelessness or serious housing instability.
Second, policymakers should expand the supply of vouchers and provide more stable funding so housing agencies can serve more families.
Third, federal, state, and local leaders should reduce barriers that prevent families from using vouchers, including landlord refusal, limited housing options, and complicated administrative processes.
Finally, federal agencies should improve how homelessness among children and families is measured. HUD data plays an important role, but it should be used alongside broader data, including Department of Education data, to better understand the true scale of family homelessness.
Families with children deserve housing policies that recognize their realities and respond to their needs. When children are undercounted, their needs are easier to ignore. But when we measure family homelessness more accurately, prioritize families more intentionally, and invest in solutions that work, we can help more children grow up with the stability they need and deserve.
For more information on the data, policy context, and recommendations discussed here, please refer here.
