Investments to Support Students Experiencing Homelessness: A Decade of Policy, A Decade of Progress in Washington State

Student homelessness is a substantial and growing problem across the United States. More than 3% of all U.S. PreK–12 students were identified as experiencing homelessness in 2023–24—a proportion that research suggests is almost certainly an undercount. Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, students experiencing homelessness across the United States have the right to “equal access to the same free, appropriate public education … as provided to other children and youths.” Still, grant funding under the act is very limited, and the experience of homelessness affects student learning in numerous ways that impede equitable access or outcomes.

Washington is one of relatively few states providing state funding over and above federal funds to support students experiencing homelessness. Washington’s supports are especially notable because they are designed to complement one another, addressing student challenges from multiple angles. Central to these efforts are Washington’s two Homeless Student Stability programs, established in 2016. One, the Homeless Student Stability Program (HSSP), consists of grants to housing-focused community-based organizations to help families secure stable housing, working collaboratively with school districts; the other, the Homeless Student Stability Education Program (HSSEP), consists of grants to school districts and is intended to improve student identification and support, with an emphasis on community partnerships. This report focuses on the efforts of these two programs to improve educational stability for students experiencing homelessness by bridging education and housing supports.

Policy Context and Policy Development

Washington’s Homeless Student Stability programs feature prominently within a broader ecosystem of state policies and programs to address student and youth homelessness. Especially notable developments include the 2015 creation of the Office of Homeless Youth (OHY) within the state Department of Commerce, as well as a 2019 requirement that each public school designates a building-level point of contact—in addition to the McKinney-Vento–mandated district liaison—to identify students experiencing homelessness and help them access supports. In 2026, the state passed further legislation to codify federal McKinney-Vento protections into state law.

The origin of Washington’s Homeless Student Stability programs involved numerous constituencies, including legal advocates, direct service and policy organizations, political leaders, and state agencies. Advocates made compelling arguments in favor of the legislation by highlighting how other groups of disadvantaged students or youth, including students in foster care and those involved with the juvenile justice system, had built-in adult advocates and state-level offices with responsibility for program oversight. Advocates also ensured there was a focus on supports beyond transportation logistics and costs to include issues like housing stability that cannot be addressed through federal McKinney-Vento funds. Framing the authorizing legislation around opportunity gaps and incorporating the voices of youth with lived experience of homelessness also helped engage legislators. Importantly, both HSSP and HSSEP use the more inclusive McKinney-Vento homelessness definition (compared to that used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development), which includes the many families living in doubled-up arrangements, hotels, and motels—enabling these families to access housing services that would not be available under more restrictive criteria.

Program Structure, Funding, and Implementation

HSSP grants predominantly support housing navigation and case management for participating students and families, as well as direct short-term financial assistance to pay expenses that can help families secure stable housing. Between 2017 and 2025, individual grants were administered to between 5 and 14 community housing organizations in a given year. During the 2023–25 state legislative biennium, the median grant award was around $200,000, making HSSP a relatively intensive program for a small subset of families. According to data from the nonprofit HSSP technical assistance provider Building Changes, HSSP-supported housing programs served approximately 1,049 families between 2022 and 2025.

HSSEP grant funds are frequently used to subsidize the salary of a district homeless liaison and fund training for building-level points of contact. HSSEP funds are also used to partially fund a range of student supports, including direct academic supports, such as tutoring; physical resources like clothing, food, and hygiene items; wraparound supports such as case management and contracts with community-based providers to address broader needs; employment supports; and enrichment activities like tutoring. Due to resource constraints, grantee districts have frequently focused more intensive supports on smaller subsets of students exhibiting particular academic or behavioral risk factors. HSSEP has substantially increased the reach of targeted district funding to address student homelessness, which was previously limited to McKinney-Vento grantees. From 2016–17 to 2024–25, between 12 and 49 districts—serving 16% to 54% of students experiencing homelessness statewide—received program funding per school year. In 2024–25, the median HSSEP grant was just under $47,000.

By incentivizing collaboration and creating shared goals across housing organizations and school districts, the Homeless Student Stability programs bridge two otherwise separate sets of entities. Each has its own funding sources and organizational structures; both are important to establishing student stability and setting up students to succeed academically. At the state level, leaders and staff from OHY and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) have worked to develop a shared understanding of the other agency’s relevant practices, systems, and constraints, with relationships and knowledge deepening over time. At the local level, district–community partnerships have enabled grantee district staff to connect students and their families through warm handoffs to resources and services beyond those the district itself could provide. Additional state-level support from Building Changes has helped OHY and OSPI bridge districts and housing partners, including via a robust community of practice structure.

OHY and OSPI have also each added staff and expanded their organizational capacity since the Homeless Student Stability programs were introduced. At OSPI, this has also enabled an increased focus on non-grantee districts, resulting in improved supports statewide for students experiencing homelessness.

Student Outcomes

Analyses using both publicly available state-level data and individual student-level administrative data point to improvements in some educational outcomes since the Homeless Student Stability programs began. To study school mobility and attendance, we used a quantitatively rigorous method to match samples of students experiencing homelessness inside and outside of grantee districts. Findings from these data, together with interviews with district homeless liaisons and state program personnel, suggest that Washington has seen meaningful improvements in some outcomes for students experiencing homelessness since the inception of HSSP and HSSEP, although substantial disparities remain. Key findings include the following:

• Improvements in Identification of Students Experiencing Homelessness. Between 2014–15 and 2023–24, the statewide number of students identified as experiencing homelessness increased by over 40%, with larger identification rate increases in grantee districts. Although worsening economic conditions may be a factor, interviews strongly suggest that at least part of this increase is attributable to improvements in identification processes and procedures.
   
• Statewide Improvements in High School Graduation Rates for Students Experiencing Homelessness. Between 2014–15 and 2023–24, the 4-year high school graduation rate for students experiencing homelessness increased by 10 percentage points—nearly double the percentage point increase for stably housed students over the same period.
   
• Improvements in School and Home Stability. Between 2015–16 and 2023–24, statewide, the proportion of students experiencing homelessness who moved schools at least once during the school year decreased by more than 30%. Further, students in districts that received HSSEP and/or McKinney-Vento funding were significantly less likely to move schools during the school year than similar students experiencing homelessness in non-grantee districts—a key finding, given that increased stability is a core intention of state funding. In addition, for families served by HSSP between 2022 and 2025, Building Changes data reveal that nearly 60% exited into permanent housing.

We did not find meaningful statewide improvements in rates of regular attendance for students experiencing homelessness relative to their stably housed peers, although some individual HSSEP grantee districts did show improvement. Similarly, statewide patterns in exclusionary discipline rates showed a decrease for all students post-COVID-19, with only a small decrease in disparities between students experiencing homelessness and stably housed students.

When interpreting Washington’s student outcome data, it is important to recall that more intensive services were generally only available for small subsets of students experiencing homelessness, whereas analyses looked at all students experiencing homelessness in districts receiving HSSEP or McKinney-Vento funds. Without more precise data tracking that identifies which students received which services, additional positive effects for this small subset of students could be muted by outcomes for the full set of students experiencing homelessness.

These findings illustrate what may be achieved with a relatively modest investment that supplements McKinney-Vento funds. Still, serious challenges remain, suggesting that these funds may have been necessary but were not nearly sufficient to meet the needs of the entire statewide population of students experiencing homelessness. Staff in grantee districts explained that additional funding could increase the dedicated staff time needed to support this population.

The availability of more funds could also allow some of the funding to be disbursed via formula, reaching students experiencing homelessness in districts that currently do not receive competitive grant funds. However, the scale of the challenge presently exceeds the available resources. The less than $5 million total annual investment through HSSP and HSSEP is far lower than the $28.6 million annual investment that, in 2019, the Washington state auditor’s office determined was needed to more fully identify and address the needs of students experiencing homelessness statewide.

Lessons and Policy Considerations

Washington’s experience offers numerous lessons for actors in other states interested in investing in supporting students experiencing homelessness.

State Implementation

• Build capacity in the state education agency to support students experiencing homelessness.
• Because student homelessness is a multifaceted challenge with root causes and solutions that reach far beyond the education system, consider placing oversight responsibility for certain broader issues related to student, family, and youth homelessness outside the state education agency.
• Foster explicit early and ongoing cross-agency coordination to successfully administer programs like Washington’s that aim to address student homelessness from multiple angles.
• Anticipate an increase in the number of students identified as experiencing homelessness. This will likely be due—at least in part—to more accurate measurement of an already-occurring problem, rather than an automatic signal of worsening conditions.
• Use robust and precise data tracking to accurately identify program impacts at the district and state levels, with technical assistance support around data tracking and use.
• Build state legislation to align with McKinney-Vento, enabling coherence across the various policies designed to support students and families experiencing homelessness.
• Consider avenues to increase the scale and enhance the sustainability of funding to more fully meet the needs of the total statewide population of students experiencing homelessness.

Local Implementation

• Build strong district–community partnerships. In Washington, community partners have played a crucial role in providing direct resources, referrals, and resource navigation, as well as in initial and ongoing policy advocacy.
• Establish and support building-level points of contact for students and families experiencing homelessness—a powerful lever for increasing identification and addressing student needs.
• Enable dedicated time for district homeless liaisons to fulfill their extensive responsibilities.
• Blend and braid funds to support students experiencing homelessness.

Investments to Support Students Experiencing Homelessness: A Decade of Policy, A Decade of Progress in Washington State by Dion Burns, Jennifer A. Bland, Jonathan Kaplan, and Patrick M. Shields is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Raikes Foundation. Additional core operating support for LPI is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.