While federal laws require people to sleep on the street before they can get housing assistance, Washington State is more realistic about what homelessness looks like today.
“The nation’s patchwork of solutions to homelessness dates to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, Congress’s first significant response to the problem. But beyond declaring that homeless children should have access to the same public education as other kids, the McKinney-Vento Act contained few protections for elementary and secondary students experiencing homelessness.
The law has since been amended several times; school districts now must identify and enroll any student experiencing homelessness. The education provisions of the law’s definition of homeless — “individuals who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence” — encompasses unaccompanied and unsheltered youth, students in homeless shelters, kids living at a hotel or motel and children staying with friends or family due to economic hardship or similar reasons.
Once a school identifies a student as homeless, the federal government requires districts to pay to transport the student to their preferred school, regardless of cost or distance. Districts also can compete for federal funds — about $80 per homeless student — to cover the cost of clothes, prescription glasses and other school supplies, although funding is scant and only a fraction of districts receive the aid.”