Copyright Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A new report on homeless students in New York City has shown that approximately 1 in 18 Staten Island students in the borough’s elementary, middle and high schools was homeless last school year. Advocates for Children of New York, an organization that collects data on homeless children annually, released new data on Monday that shows more than 154,000 New York City students were identified as homeless during the 2024-2025 school year — marking the 10th consecutive year that more than 100,000 students did not have a permanent place to call home across the five boroughs. “Education is key to breaking the cycle of homelessness, but our City is currently failing students in shelter,” said Maria Odom, executive director of AFC. “Ensuring students who are homeless receive the support they need to be successful in school must be a top priority for the next Mayor, who must lead a citywide, cross-agency effort to break down bureaucratic silos, reverse these alarming trends, and ensure students experiencing homelessness can get to school every day and receive the educational support they need to succeed.” Of the students identified as homeless in 2024-2025, nearly 65,000, or 42%, spent time living in city shelters, more than 82,000, or 53%, were “doubled up,” or temporarily sharing the housing of others, and the remaining 5%, or about 7,000 students, were living in hotels or motels, unsheltered, or otherwise lacking a regular and adequate nighttime residences. The overall rate of student homelessness rose in every borough compared to the 2023-2024 school year. Like in years past, AFC said students who were homeless last school year were concentrated in the Bronx and Manhattan. Staten Island has the lowest rate of homelessness compared to the other boroughs. About 1 in 18 students attending school on Staten Island lacked permanent housing and one in 55 students was in a shelter. In the 2024-2025 school year, Staten Island public and charter schools had an overall rate of student homelessness below 7% — at 5.7%. AFC is calling on the next mayor to work to end the crisis of childhood homeless, while also focusing attention on the education of such students. City agencies should work together, the group stated, to increase shelter placements closer to where kids attend school to avoid long commutes and unnecessary school transfers, address persistently high rates of chronic absenteeism, and increase access to early childhood education programs.