LANSING — When a Washtenaw County student experiencing homelessness faced obstacles to being able to take the SAT because the test site was more than an hour away in Lansing, an increase in one-time federal funding created an opportunity.

Washtenaw Intermediate School District Grants & Special Projects Coordinator Sarah Hierman said the significant influx of $800 million in one-time federal funding during the pandemic via the American Rescue Plan provided more flexibility for schools to work with families who were facing challenges associated with housing instability. In this case, the intermediate school district was able to pay for a hotel stay for the child and their parent, allowing them to take the test the next morning.

While the scenario illustrated just one of the barriers students experiencing homelessness have in accessing their education, Hierman said it also showed how more flexible funding offered an immediate solution to the student’s dilemma.

“We do not need our kids who are unstably housed also falling behind in school, because education is a means to something different for them,” Hierman said.

Although much remains uncertain about the ongoing funding for federal programs with the current government shutdown, both the U.S. Senate and House appropriations committees have passed bills that maintain funding for students experiencing homelessness, rejecting the Trump administration’s proposal to do away with dedicated federal funding in favor of consolidating funding for homeless students with 17 other programs in a single K-12 block grant.

While the $128 million in dedicated federal funding for homeless students provided via the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is a far cry from the pandemic-era funding schools received, the fact that Congress maintained the dedicated funding is an acknowledgement of the challenges those students face, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a national nonprofit advocating for working to overcome homelessness through education.

“I think it shows that across the political spectrum, there is an understanding that without this specific federal program, children and youth who are homeless would not be able to access schools at all. This is the door opener,” Duffield said. “So, it’s broad recognition that homelessness creates unique barriers for very basic school access and school stability, and a desire to keep this in place moving forward.”

Signed into federal law in 1987, the McKinney-Vento Act defines homelessness at the federal level and ensures that schools identify and support eligible students, offering assistance with everything from transportation to school supplies. It also requires that school districts have homeless liaisons who provide referrals to social services for health care, food and housing assistance.

McKinney-Vento protections ensure that students are able to enroll in school even when they lack records required due to frequent moves. It also allows those students to continue to attend the same school, even when their homelessness forces them to move out of the district.

More than 35,000 Michigan students identified as experiencing homelessness in 2023-24, according to state data. Nearly 70% of students who experienced homelessness in the state were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of all school days.

Impacting outcomes

When federal funding to schools for identifying and serving homeless students increased during the pandemic, a summary of national outcomes showed chronic absenteeism went down and graduation rates went up. The study showed graduation rates improved among homeless students, who also had better outcomes on math and science assessments.

“That’s a pretty important finding there — that if you actually are providing additional support for children we know are at high risk, that you can have an impact on all these different educational outcomes,” said Jennifer Erb Downward, director of Housing Stability Programs and Policy Initiatives with the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions Initiative.

The significant influx of $800 million in one-time funding during the pandemic via American Rescue Plan dollars helped increase the number of districts receiving dedicated homeless education funds from 21% to 62%, according to data from UM’s Poverty Solutions and SchoolHouse Connection.

Beyond that, Erb Downward said school districts that previously only received a small amount of funding via McKinney-Vento saw increased dedicated funding, bringing to light more awareness about how widespread and underreported the issue is.

“The first thing that we really saw and heard from people working directly in the schools with families and working with identified students experiencing homelessness, was that funding raised awareness about the issue,” she said. “There are a lot of people who said they didn’t know previously about McKinney-Vento or the protections that students had.”

In Newaygo and Oceana counties, the increase in one-time funding allowed schools more flexibility in how those funds were spent, said Katherine Mater, the McKinney-Vento coordinator for both counties.

That meant families experiencing financial hardships during that time — even temporarily — were eligible to receive funding to stay in a hotel if they had been evicted or had a financial emergency.

“Those COVID-19 dollars had a little more flexibility in allowing us to put them in a hotel for a short period of time and then help get them connected with local resources to help them get out of that and find a long-term solution,” Mater said. “That was a really great benefit that we noticed, and since then, it has been a hardship to kind of revert back and not have that resource.”

A stable place

While federal funding for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act accounts for less than 1% of the Department of Education’s budget, its impact is immense, Erb Downward said.

The inherent difficulties that come with housing stability have led to 48% of homeless students being chronically absent, compared to 27% of all other U.S. students, according to data collected by SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions.

School often provides a safe haven for those students, Erb Downward said, fulfilling a variety of their basic needs throughout the course of the day.

“I think when you don’t have a stable place to live, school really becomes that stable place where you’re going to see people who care about you,” she said. “You know that you’ll have access to food. You know you’ll have a place to be that is safe.”

In Washtenaw County, as is the case across the state, the most prevalent circumstances students experiencing homelessness face involves “doubling-up,” or a shared living arrangement, accounting for 72.7% of Michigan’s homeless student population, according to state data.

While that is also the most common scenario in Newaygo and Oceana counties, Mater said the county’s rural backdrop means some families are without a home entirely, living in a camper, their car or a tent.

To help those students and their families, Mater said school liaisons look to fill in the gaps of their most practical needs, with popular items including gas cards, hygiene products and some small car repairs. Some school districts in Newaygo County were able to use American Rescue Plan funds to start food and clothing pantries, while the county has partnered with a local laundry mat to help McKinney-Vento families.

Ultimately, the work of liaisons involves removing any barriers to education for students, Mater said.

“If you think about it in a more broad term, it’s really what helps the student be able to get to school, attend school and be successful within their day at school,” she said.