Doubled Up: Housing Instability Among Students in Missouri
By: Deanna C. Childress, Ph.D.
The number of people in Missouri without stable housing is rising; this includes families, children and youth. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act–initially established in 1987–requires schools to collect data on and provide support for students facing homelessness. However, little is known about the extent of students and families experiencing homelessness, the policies and programs that support these vulnerable students or their schooling opportunities and outcomes. In this report, I describe the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, describe recent homelessness trends, provide an overview of McKinney-Vento participation and briefly describe outcomes for students supported through McKinney-Vento programs across the state of Missouri. I conclude with a discussion of the importance of addressing homelessness in relation to student mobility.
Key Points:
HUD Point-in-Time (PIT) data–measured on one night each year–estimates that 159,056 children & youth in the U.S. were homeless in 2023.
In contrast, McKinney-Vento data–measured throughout the year–estimates that more than 1.2 million children & youth in the U.S. were homeless in 2023.
Among children, homelessness in Missouri declined by 54% from 2013 to 2022 but increased by 26% from 2022 to 2024, according to HUD Point-in-Time (PIT) homelessness counts.
More than 34,000 students in Missouri experienced homelessness during the 2022-23 school year, according to McKinney-Vento data on housing instability among students.
More than 80% of students experiencing homelessness in Missouri were “doubled up” living with another family during the 2022-23 school year.
Almost 72% (398/554) of all public school LEAs in Missouri served students experiencing homelessness in 2023.
Almost 36% of students enrolled in Normandy Schools Collaborative lack stable housing (1,032/2,897), according to 2022-23 housing instability data.
Students experiencing homelessness are overrepresented relative to enrollment in several LEAs, with the highest parity gaps in the St. Louis area:
Almost 9% (3,068) of all 2022-23 McKinney-Vento students in Missouri were served by St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS), despite SLPS only enrolling 2% (18,401) of all public school students in Missouri that year.
Ferguson-Florissant enrolls 1% (9,229) of Missouri’s public school population but serves 6% (2,141) of all Missouri’s McKinney-Vento students.
Normandy Schools Collaborative enrolls just 0.3% (2,897) of public school students in Missouri but serves 2.9% (1,032) of all Missouri’s McKinney-Vento students.
Students of color are overrepresented in Missouri’s overall McKinney-Vento counts, making up just 31.5% of public school students but 57.8% of students experiencing homelessness.
Proficiency rates for students experiencing homelessness are more than 20% lower than state averages in both reading and math.
Please Cite As: Childress, D. (2025). Doubled up: Housing instability and homelessness among students in Missouri. Policy Research in Missouri Education, 7(16). www.primecenter.org/education-reports-database/homelessness