How Childhood Homelessness Impacts a Person and Community for Life
Extreme poverty severely impacts children’s education, health and future prosperity — consequences that essentially affect the well-being of cities, states, and the entire nation and that leave children behind as one of the most vulnerable populations.
When it comes to homelessness, most politicians choose to largely overlook the effect housing insecurity has on children. The consequence is missed economic opportunities and productivity of youth and young adults as they enter their working years.
Poverty and homelessness are intricately intertwined. The most recent Kids Count Data Book published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in June examines state and national child wellbeing data prior and after the pandemic, in 2019 and 2024. According to the data, Tennessee ranks 37th among all states in overall child wellbeing. When looking at economic wellbeing for children, Tennessee ranked in 42nd place.
About 459,000 Tennessee kids lived in households with a high housing cost burden, a trend that has worsened between 2019 and 2024, leaving Tennessee among the states with the biggest declines in economic wellbeing for children. Tennessee specifically declined in the category of “children living in households with a high housing cost burden.”
The authors of the report point out that, “Of course, the latest data through 2024 do not reflect today’s realities for families and children, such as higher living costs, reduced public support and a shifting labor market. As new data become available, we will see how post-2024 conditions are affecting the lives of children.” For the full report visit https://www.aecf.org/resources/2026-kids-count-data-book.
When we hone in on child homelessness data, the picture does not look promising. More than 1.5 million children nationwide experienced homelessness during the 2023-2024 school year, which marked a 12.6-percent increase over the prior year, according to School House Connection, a national nonprofit focused on overcoming homelessness through early care and education.
In Nashville, those numbers looked worse, with more than 4,500 students identified as homeless during the 2023-2024 school year under the McKinney-Vento Act definition, which signified a 27-percent increase over the previous school year. In addition, about one-third of Metro Nashville Public Schools students are considered economically disadvantaged.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 provides a broader definition of homelessness than the usual federal definition by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As such, under McKinney Vento, children are considered homeless when they lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.
In a nutshell, children under McKinney-Vento, are considered homeless when they:
- Live in families that share housing with others due to housing loss, economic hardship or a similar reason;
- Stay in motels, trailer parks, or campgrounds due to the lack of an adequate alternative;
- Stay in shelters or transitional housing; or
- Sleep in cars, parks, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, or similar settings.
In comparison, the common definition of homelessness we are generally used to, as defined by HUD, would only recognize people staying in shelters, transitional housing or sleeping outdoors, in cars, abandoned buildings and substandard housing as being homeless. That’s what HUD refers to as literal homelessness.
Nationwide about three-quarters of students who are considered homeless live in doubled-up situations. Only about 15 percent would be considered homeless under the federal HUD definition, and the remaining 10 percent are staying in motels or hotels paid for by their families. Motel rooms that are paid for by a third party such as a nonprofit, church, or government entity are considered shelter/temporary beds.
In Nashville, of the 4,500 MNPS students identified as homeless during SY23/24:
- 86 percent were doubled up;
- 7 percent stayed in shelters; and
- 7 percent were in motels/hotels.
This data is annualized, meaning that in reality families who experience homelessness tend to move a lot. I recently spoke with a single, working mom who explained to me that she mostly stayed in motels, but when the money ran out, she and her two minor kids slept in her car. At times, they also stayed at a shelter to save up some money. Finally, they moved into a program with strict rules and shared living space, where they paid $900 a month, which made it hard to save up and pay down any debts.
Talking to several families in the recent past, debts generally become insurmountable due to divorce, domestic violence, medical expenses and car payments. Consequently, many of the mostly single-parent families I spoke with also incurred credit card debt with cruel interest rates in a last-ditch effort to save their housing.
Homelessness is not a linear process and creates instability that makes it hard for kids to stay healthy and focus on their schooling.
While the definition of homelessness for the Department of Education is broader than what we usually consider as “homeless,” the federal funding to assist homeless students does not extend to providing housing.
All these different definitions and data points can be confusing. As such the latest homelessness data HUD released in May shows an 11 percent decrease in family homelessness between 2024 and 2025. However, this does not include the “hidden homelessness,” such as the majority of families with children forced to live in doubled-up situations where they do not hold their own lease or in motels.
Family Promise, a national nonprofit that trains a network of local family providers, published a statement on June 2, saying that the decrease in HUD data does not capture the full story. “We have seen firsthand that family homelessness and housing insecurity are, in fact, increasing, as many of Family Promise’s over 170 sites have growing waiting lists and are unable to serve all the families experiencing homelessness in their region.”
A healthy, democratic economy depends on the ability of people to reach their full potential. However, child homelessness has a long-lasting effect. Stories we hear that turn into Hollywood movies such as “From Homelessness to Harvard” are exceptions that feed into our stubborn belief that if a person only works hard, they can overcome all adversity put in their path.
In reality, however, a 2021 study found that childhood and youth homelessness negatively impacts housing stability as an adult. Specifically, this particular research, authored by Milad Parpouchi, Akm Moniruzzaman, and Julian M. Somers, found that half of the participants with a history of child homelessness struggled with housing stability as an adult in a Housing First program.
Child homelessness has huge impacts not only on economic well-being but also on health outcomes. Children growing up in housing instability over a few years develop higher levels of asthma, mental health, trauma and developmental delays.
We need to recognize that early intervention and prevention to keep families in stable housing is not only the right remedy but also cost effective. In a past column about prevention (July 3, 2024), I looked at Santa Clara County’s homelessness prevention program for families. They spent an average of $7,400 per family, which is a fraction of the cost it takes for programs to move a person experiencing chronic homelessness off the streets.
Over the years, as I have gotten to know people living outdoors, I have been surprised to learn how many folks with a long-term history of literal homelessness have experienced a childhood marked by unstable housing, homelessness and separation from their parents due to consequences of extreme poverty.
At one point while writing this column, I was thinking that maybe I am exaggerating or dramatizing the situation. But after double checking the numbers and as I have been talking to more single women with children who have been experiencing recent homelessness, I realize that we truly do not fully understand the extent that our lack of focus on child homelessness has on the well-being of our society.
Politicians are increasingly focused on removing visible homelessness and to pay for the institutions and prisons they’re building to make homelessness invisible, they erode the little safety net around health care, nutritious food supplemental programs, and public education. All programs that affect children.
A 2025-report by the Urban Institute called “How Housing Instability Affects Children” by Veronica Gaitán also includes a list of how housing stability improves economic outcomes. The full list from that report is below:
- A study of more than 7,300 children randomly assigned participating families to three groups: an experimental voucher group, a Section 8 voucher group, and a control group with no intervention. It found that children younger than 13 assigned to the experimental voucher group increased their individual earnings in adulthood by $3,477 and total pretax lifetime earnings by $302,000. They were also more likely to attend college, live in lower-poverty neighborhoods as adults, and were less likely to be single mothers (for the girls in the sample).
- [Another] study found that middle childhood (ages 6–10) is a sensitive age for moving. At that age, any move is associated with lower earnings, fewer work hours, and less educational attainment later in life.
- Spending additional time in public housing and receiving housing choice voucher supports between ages 13 and 18 (compared with unsubsidized housing) leads to increased earnings at age 26.
- Children in households with low incomes who received rental subsidies for more of their childhood experienced long-term economic benefits, like higher annual earnings by their mid-twenties.
If we invest in stabilizing housing for our children through subsidies and prevention efforts, we are investing in the future economic power and well-being of our communities — at a fraction of what it would cost us to continue to underinvest in our future generations or do nothing.