$800 million to support the identification, enrollment, and school participation of children and youth experiencing homelessness.

SHC led advocacy for the American Rescue Plan Act Homeless Children and Youth funds (ARP-HCY): we conducted research demonstrating the need for dedicated funding, worked closely with legislators, and mobilized grassroots support. ARP-HCY is eight times the annual appropriation for the McKinney-Vento Act’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program, more than the previous ten years of EHCY funding combined, and the single largest investment in child and youth homelessness in the nation’s history. The unprecedented amount and flexibility of funding will allow schools to increase their capacity to identify, re-engage, and support children and youth experiencing homelessness at a time of growing need.

Helped unaccompanied homeless youth access financial aid to pursue postsecondary dreams and achieve economic independence.

• To counter the historic drop in college enrollment in the pandemic, SHC created new practical tools that drew over 10,000 page views, including an email template to inform youth experiencing homelessness about the FAFSA, a resource to help students answer questions on the FAFSA, and tips for helping students fill out the FAFSA.
• Provided direct assistance to over 30 youth or providers who needed help to resolve FAFSA barriers.

SHC supported twelve state teams to make measurable progress for children and youth experiencing homelessness in early childhood education, K-12 education, and higher education through our “Education Leads Home” Community of Practice. Read our 2020-2021 State Initiatives on Student Homelessness Progress-to-Date Summary to learn more about what the state teams accomplished.

• We were sought out for our expertise by numerous media outlets and were quoted in more than 40 stories, including Education Week, Chalkbeat, the Wall Street Journal, the National Journal, Teen Vogue, Politico, the Hechinger Report, and the 74 Million.

• We launched a new series of stories: “Hidden Homelessness: Why Child, Youth, and Family Homelessness is the Crisis We Cannot Ignore.” Through first-person storytelling, the series explores the ways in which homelessness is an equity issue that is inextricably connected to others; it is an experience that many vulnerable student groups face at disproportionate rates and intersects deeply with other national crises of mental health, academic achievement gaps, xenophobia, and the impacts of systemic racism. Our five storytellers — two high school students and three school district homeless liaisons — remind us how the homelessness crisis underlies many others and therefore why federal policies and services for vulnerable children and youth must address the full picture of their lived experiences.

• We were invited to publish a featured article in School Superintendent, the magazine of AASA, the School Superintendents Association. This award-winning magazine is delivered to every public school superintendent in the United States who is an AASA member and others at the cabinet-level.