Summary of Region 1 Data from the Education of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness Program 2019-2020 State Evaluation Report

Posted by People's Emergency Center (PEC) on January 25, 2022

People’s Emergency Center (PEC) has summarized a Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) report on the ‘Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness’ (ECYEH) that provides data specific to Region 1, which includes the Philadelphia School District, charter schools, and information from shelters. ​

Key highlights include:

• Philadelphia School District identified 7,881 children and youth who experienced homelessness in School Year (SY) 2020.
• 4,002 children and youth are homeless in Philadelphia by virtue of living doubled up with another family (as opposed to with a homeless service provider), slightly lower than the City’s reported figure of serving 4,381 by the homeless housing system in fiscal year 2020 (from the Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services Data FY 2020 Data Snapshot).
• Region 1 data identified 2,064 children under the age of five in Philadelphia schools. By comparison, the Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services served 1,720 children under age 5 in their Fiscal Year 2020. The variability between the state and local data here relates to the use of different definitions of homelessness by education (state) and housing (city) agencies.
• Philadelphia LEA identified 3,816 children experiencing homelessness in Grades 1 through 8 in SY20. By comparison, the Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services served 1,881 children ages 5 to 12 in their Fiscal Year 2020.
• The Philadelphia LEA identified 1,511 youth in grades 9 through 12. By comparison, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Centers for Disease Control estimated 2,954 homeless students in the School District of Philadelphia for SY 2019, and the Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services served 780 youth ages 13-17 in their Fiscal Year 2020.

We recommend that the City of Philadelphia and community organizations support the District’s efforts by pro-actively reaching out to homeless students and their families, especially those who are residing doubled up, as they will have fewer resources available to them than those in shelter and connecting them to services.

Read the report.