Record 1 in 7 New York City public school students are homeless

A record high of 154,000 students going to public school in New York City were homeless during the last school year, according to data that was made public on Monday. The number represents nearly one in seven students being homeless.

The figures were gathered from the New York State Education Department, per the New York Post, and marks an all-time high in homeless students in the New York City public school system. If every homeless student in the sytem were to make up their own school district, it would be one of the 20 largest school districts in the coutry.

The numbers were reported by Advocates for Children of New York (AFC). The director of the organization, Jennifer Pringle, said, “Every year for the past decade, more than 100,000 students in our public schools have been homeless."

“There are now more students who are homeless in NYC than the entire Dallas public school system," she added. Of all the 154,000 children who were homeless at some point during the school year, 65,000 also had to spend at least one night in a homeless shelter and 7,000 had to live in motels.

“This year alone, we’ve worked with families whose children already missed an entire month of school because of the lack of coordination between the shelter and school systems," Pringle added. In addition to the homelessness, 67 percent of the children who have had to live in shelters have been chronically absent from school. Only 22 percent of those living in shelters in grades 3 throught 8 were proficient in the New York State English Language Arts and math tests.

In the aftermath of the findings, Maria Odom, the executive director for AFC said that the next mayor of the Big Apple has to address the issue. “Education is key to breaking the cycle of homelessness, but our City is currently failing students in shelter,” she said.

"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."