Facing a Surge in Student Homelessness, Teachers’ Unions Demand Systemic Change and Housing Solutions
Several teachers’ unions in the U.S. are stepping into the fight against student homelessness as federal and state support programs continue to fall short.
School can present a series of difficult challenges for any student. It’s where students learn life skills like navigating conflicts and time management. For homeless students, these challenges are exponentially magnified because of their lack of stable housing. Schools can also act as de facto service providers for homeless students by offering them free food and clothes.
A number of schools have seen the needs of homeless students rise during the pandemic, which has stressed school budgets. Data from the National Center for Homeless Education shows that the number of students experiencing homelessness in the U.S. surpassed 1.2 million during the 2021-2022 school year. That’s a 10% spike from the previous school year. This happened at a time when the federal government allocated more than $800 million of COVID-19 relief aid to help homeless students attend school and receive resources.
Teachers’ Unions Step Up Amid Shortfalls
Still, the efforts have fallen short. That shortcoming has inspired teachers’ unions from Chicago, Illinois, to Fresno, California, to step in and fight for better living conditions for their students.
“We want students facing these conditions to have stable housing,” Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, told Invisible People. “It helps them reach their academic, social, and emotional potential. That’s something teachers care deeply about.”
Teachers’ unions are primarily concerned with working conditions for educators. That means they collectively bargain for better pay, benefits, and workplace conditions inside schools. To Potter, these issues also extend to the wellbeing of the students that schools are responsible for.
Chicago Teachers Union’s Push for Stable Housing
In Chicago, there are roughly 25,000 students experiencing homelessness, according to data from the Chicago Public School system. That represents about 7.3% of all enrolled students in the school system and is more than three times greater than the national average. The data shows that more than two-thirds of these students live doubled-up with another family, and another 28% live in shelters.
Attending school under these conditions can be difficult, if not impossible. Shelter rules can limit the number of after-school activities that homeless students can participate in, and living doubled up can significantly impact a student’s ability to focus on their school work.
That’s why the Chicago Teachers Union is bargaining for a pilot program to provide 5,000 units of stable housing to homeless students in the school system. Potter said the union hopes to coordinate with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new homeless czar and local service providers to “accelerate the process by which families [with homeless students] can receive services and housing vouchers.”
Potter said adding these initiatives to the union’s collective bargaining agreement would give them legal weight and force the school districts to provide adequate support for their homeless students.
“You can’t do homework without a stable home,” he said.
Fresno’s Initiative for Safe Parking Spaces
In Fresno, the local teacher’s union is also fighting for stable housing for its homeless students. The union laid out a proposal in its collective bargaining negotiations that would allow homeless families to use school parking lots as de facto Safe Parking Spaces. These spaces are areas where a family living in a car can safely park overnight without the threat of being towed.
The proposal would cost upwards of $20 million, with $500,000 going toward providing security for the parking spots. However, they were left out of the final three-year contract the union negotiated in November 2023. Fresno superintendent Bob Nelson told local news outlet GV Wire that the initiatives will be discussed during the next round of negotiations.
Boston Teachers Union’s Agreement for Enhanced Support
The Boston Teachers Union has taken similar steps to support their more than 5,000 homeless students. In February 2024, the union reached an agreement with Boston Public Schools to add at least one full-time nurse to every school and 23 new student-facing mental health providers. The contract also included a one-time $300,000 investment to create a new citywide hub to help homeless students access wrap-around services.
“Some of our students are dealing with homelessness, poverty, and trauma, and social-emotional learning is an important part of the work we do to support them,” Lucinda Mills, a social worker and member of the BTU’s Social Emotional Learning Committee, said in a press release. “Having licensed mental health professionals on hand to support students isn’t a bonus – it’s a fundamental need, especially in high-need districts like Boston.”
Call to Action: Keep Pandemic-Era Support Programs
The pandemic proved that we need to rethink housing in the U.S. It also proved that providing additional support and protections for vulnerable renters and households with students facing housing instability worked.
That’s why we need you to contact your officials and representatives. Tell them you support keeping many of the pandemic-related aid programs in place for future use. They have proven effective at keeping people housed, which is the first step to ending homelessness.