The number of city public school students who lived in homeless shelters for at least part of the last school year rose by more than 4,000 over the year before, figures released Monday show.
The increase, from 28,567 to 32,803 in 2015-16, according to the Independent Budget Office, marks a 15% hike in students living in shelters. The budget office’s tally of 1,475 traditional public schools also shows the number of schools with 10% or more of students living in shelters increased from 61 in 2011-2012 to 155 in 2015-2016.
The Bronx has enrolled the most kids living in shelters throughout the city’s explosive rise in the population of homeless students. More than 40% of students in the shelter system — 13,729 — attended Bronx schools in the 2015-16 school year, according to the IBO.
That’s a 44% increase in shelter residents attending schools in the Bronx since 2011-12, when 9,514 kids from shelters attended the borough’s public schools, budget office officials said.
City Education Department spokeswoman Toya Holness said Mayor de Blasio has restored $10.3 million for programs to help homeless students in his latest version of the executive city budget.
“Students in shelter are among our most vulnerable populations,” Holness said. “We are hiring more social workers through the Bridging the Gap initiative, expanding Afterschool Reading Club, providing admissions supports to improve participation rates and offering more school-based health services.”
