Youngest Outcasts

Child Homelessness Surges in U.S.

One child in every 30.

The number of homeless children in the U.S. has surged in recent years to an all-time high, amounting to one child in every 30, according to a comprehensive state-by-state report. The report, which will be issued Monday, blames the nation’s high poverty rate, the lack of affordable housing, and the effects of pervasive domestic violence. The report by the National Center on Family Homelessness calculates that nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013. The number is based on the Department of Education’s latest count of 1.3 million homeless children in public schools, supplemented by estimates of homeless preschool children not counted by the DOE. The problem is particularly severe in California, which has one-eighth of the U.S. population but accounts for more than one-fifth of the homeless children with a tally of nearly 527,000.