The EHCY program is the key federal education program targeted to homeless children and youth, and, in school year 2011-12, more than 1.1 million were enrolled in our nation’s public schools, according to Education data. For purposes of the program, a homeless child or youth is one who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. This includes children who: are sharing the housing of others due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason (commonly referred to as “doubled-up”); are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement; have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings; are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and are migratory children who qualify as homeless due to their living circumstances, as described above. Education’s Office of Student Achievement and School Accountability (SASA)—within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education— provides EHCY formula grants to states, which must comply with certain requirements. For example, the McKinney-Vento Act requires each state that receives funds to establish an Office of Coordinator for Education of Homeless Children and Youths, with responsibilities that The state plan describes, among include carrying out the state plan.other things, procedures that will be used to identify homeless children and youth, strategies to address challenges, such as enrollment delays, and a demonstration of the state’s efforts to review and revise policies to remove barriers to the enrollment and retention of homeless children and youth. Among other responsibilities, state educational agencies report data to Education on the educational needs of their homeless students; provide technical assistance to school districts and monitor their compliance with the program; and facilitate collaboration between the state and other service providers that serve homeless children and youth and their families. States are generally required to award no less than 75 percent of their grant to school districts on a competitive basis. Grants to school districts, awarded for a period of up to 3 years, are to be used for activities that facilitate the enrollment, attendance, and success of homeless children and youth in school. Grants to districts are to be awarded based on the need of the school district for assistance and the quality of the application submitted. In determining which districts to fund, states are required to consider certain factors, such as the needs of homeless children and youth enrolled in the school district, the types of services to be provided under the program, and the extent to which the services will be coordinated with other services available to homeless children and youth. Districts are authorized to use these funds to support a range of activities for homeless students, such as tutoring, transportation, and referrals to health care services, as well as to provide professional development for educators and support coordination between schools and other agencies. According to Education data, in school year 2011-12, fewer than a quarter of school districts nationwide (3,531 out of 16,064) received EHCY program funds; these districts enrolled 68 percent of the homeless students identified that year. Education also allows states to use a regional approach to award their competitive grants. Through such an approach, according to the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE), a state may provide funds to established regional educational entities, geographic clusters of school districts defined by the state, clusters self-selected by neighboring school districts, or some combination of these approaches. According to Education’s survey of states in school year 2010-11, the most recent survey data available, 16 states reported that they provided funds through an intermediate educational agency or consortia. The “school of origin” is the school that the child or youth attended when permanently housed or the school in which the child or youth was last enrolled. 42 U.S.C. § 11432(g)(3)(G). In determining the best interest of a child or youth, a district must, to the extent feasible, keep a homeless child or youth in the school of origin unless doing so is contrary to the wishes of the child or youth’s parent or guardian. 42 U.S.C. § 11432(g)(3)(A)-(B). immediately enroll in the selected school, even without the records, such as proof of residency, typically required; and receive services comparable to those offered to other students for which they are eligible, such as transportation, educational services, and free school meals. Other programs administered by Education and other federal agencies, many of which receive more federal funding than the EHCY program, may also support the needs of homeless children and youth (see table 1 for selected examples). For example, under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA), school districts are required to set aside funds as necessary to provide comparable services for homeless students who do not attend Title I schools. In addition, grantee school districts are required to coordinate with other organizations serving homeless children and youth, including those operating programs funded under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. The populations served by these programs vary, and for some programs, eligibility for services does not depend on being homeless. Among the programs that do target homeless populations, some use definitions of homelessness that are different from the one used by the EHCY program. The McKinney-Vento Act also created the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), which currently consists of 19 federal cabinet secretaries and agency heads. The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009 established as the mission of USICH to coordinate the federal response to homelessness and create a national partnership at every level of government and with the private sector to reduce and end homelessness. To identify homeless students, officials in a majority of school districts (13 of 20) said their districts systematically requested some information on the housing status of new students using a form during the enrollment Two of these districts also requested housing information from process.every student every year to help identify eligible students whose housing circumstances may have changed following enrollment. According to the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE), using a questionnaire at enrollment can help school districts increase their identification of homeless students (see fig. 1). To identify students who were not identified at enrollment or whose housing status changed during the year, homeless liaisons in the 20 school districts we interviewed also relied on referrals from school staff or other service providers (see fig. 2). students who provide home addresses of shelters or other students; students who request transportation changes; students with attendance problems or who are tardy; students who fall asleep in class; and students with dropping grades, hunger, or hygiene issues. Officials we interviewed also discussed the importance of training staff to identify homeless students, as identifying currently enrolled students is less systematic than identifying new students at enrollment. Despite ongoing efforts to identify homeless students through housing surveys and referrals, officials in 8 out of the 20 districts we interviewed noted a problem with the under-identification of homeless students. All four state EHCY program coordinators we interviewed acknowledged that school districts face financial disincentives to identifying homeless children and youth due to the cost of services districts must provide. Officials from both grantee and non-grantee districts reported facing significant challenges in identifying all eligible students. Officials in 11 of the 20 districts we interviewed said they identified increasing numbers of homeless children and youth in recent years, and many noted the frequent mobility of some students, making it challenging for school staff to keep track of their homeless students. Officials in 4 of the 20 districts said it was challenging to identify children and youth living doubled-up with others, particularly where living with extended family may be a cultural norm. In such cases, families may not consider themselves to be homeless or may be unaware of their rights to receive services under the program. For example, officials in one district told us that many of the district’s immigrant families who work for a local meat processor live with relatives in doubled-up conditions but do not consider themselves homeless. To help clarify program eligibility, one district we reviewed used its enrollment form to ask parents or guardians to check a box when they are “living ‘doubled-up’ due to economic emergency, not to save money or for cultural preference.” In one school district we reviewed, the enrollment form asks parents or guardians to check a box “if the student is homeless or living in temporary/transitional housing,” and asks whether the student is an “unaccompanied youth,” but does not describe eligible housing situations. As a result, a student who is living doubled-up due to economic circumstances may not be identified, even though this situation represents a majority of homeless students nationwide (see fig. 3). Nationally, according to Education’s survey of grantee school districts in school year 2010-11, homeless liaisons spent a median amount of nearly 2 hours per week on their responsibilities for the EHCY program. Many liaisons said that they juggled multiple responsibilities, including duties outside of the EHCY program. Officials in 7 of the 20 districts cited their limited availability to provide training and outreach or the lack of sufficiently trained school personnel as a challenge to identifying eligible students. In one state we visited the state EHCY program coordinator who surveyed homeless liaisons on the amount of time they spent on the EHCY program said she has found a link between the amount of time liaisons spend on the EHCY program and the number of homeless students they have identified. One liaison said there is confusion around “awaiting foster care placement,” a term used to describe some children and youth eligible for the EHCY program.