Among the housing unstable and unhoused children in Connecticut, nearly 500 are currently experiencing active homelessness.
Like the overall rate of homelessness in Connecticut, the number of unhoused school-age children rose in recent years. Homelessness in Connecticut rose more than 30% from 2023 to 2024.
The “By Name List,” is an aggregation of all actively homeless people in Connecticut. The list is updated daily as calls are made to 211.
It’s a combined effort of the Coordinated Access Networks, of which there are seven in Connecticut, according to Margaret LeFever, who helps run the homeless response system in Fairfield County and Northwest Connecticut for the Housing Collective.
“The ‘By Name List' is the active registry of everyone who's experiencing literal homelessness,” LeFever said. “That number actually does not include those that are at risk of homelessness. It's those that are currently experiencing either emergency shelter or triage homelessness.”
Anyone who is enrolled in an emergency shelter, outreach program or transitional housing, is included on the list, LeFever said.
As of Aug. 29, there were 464 children in active homelessness, including 98 in Fairfield County.
Reports may vary as the definition for homeless changes based on the programs collecting data, LeFever said.
The federal McKinney-Vento Act works to decrease child homelessness and has a broader definition of homelessness.
“They're including those that are doubled up or at risk staying in hotels, things like that, that are not necessarily included in those that are in emergency shelter or triage spaces,” LeFever said.
Under the McKinney-Vento guidelines, there were more than 5,100 students in Connecticut who experienced homelessness during the last school year, according to Connecticut education data.
More than 3,400 of those children were living “doubled-up,” in shared homes due to the cost of housing. Ninety experienced unsheltered homelessness, living in parks, abandoned buildings and vehicles.
Childhood homelessness isn’t insurmountable, with the addition of more affordable housing statewide LeFever said.
“It is possible for us to end child homelessness in Connecticut if we had the stable foundation of affordable homes that every child needs,” LeFever said. “If we were able to expand our affordable housing resources across the state we would be able to reduce and ultimately end child homelessness in Connecticut.”
Being unhoused comes with additional challenges for children, as academic and social and emotional learning suffers in unstable environments.
In some instances emergency shelters aren't located in the same city as the students’ preferred school system. This can be an additional barrier to education for unhoused students.
“Having to get up earlier and being able to get there on time, and with all the resources like the school supplies and things like that that they need in order to learn safely is a big barrier to be able to thrive in an educational setting,” LeFever said.
The Housing Collective says Connecticut’s housing programs are working as designed and efficiently, but need more investment and resources.
“Our systems are working as designed and can always use additional resources and do very much need that, but really what we're also seeing is just the sheer lack of homes,” Mark McNulty, with the Housing Collective, said.
