Being homelessness is difficult for anyone, but it can be particularly detrimental to the healthy development of young children. This section highlights some key research findings that, taken together, underscore the importance of housing for young children and families to help mitigate negative outcomes.

• More than 1.6 million children - or one in 45 - are estimated to be homeless annually in America. About 40 percent of those homeless children, or roughly 640,000, are under the age of six.[1]
• Homeless children are more likely than other children to have moderate to severe acute and chronic health problems, and less access to medical and dental care.[5]
• In a study of homeless families with young children, researchers found that 54 percent of preschoolers had a major developmental delay (e.g., in language, gross motor, fine motor, or social skills), compared with only 16 percent of their housed peers. [1]
• The 2001 reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento law requires that homeless children who are of preschool age have equal access to the same public preschool programs as non-homeless children.[6]
• The typical homeless family is headed by a young, single woman in her 20s, with limited education (often less than a high school diploma), with two children (one or both under the age of 6 years old).[2]
• Several factors predict which families will return to emergency shelters, including whether they exited without having obtained a housing subsidy, and low educational attainment and/or poor work history for the head of the household.[3]
• Approximately 21 percent of homeless families in 2010 were living in places not intended for housing (e.g., in public spaces, cars, etc.).[4]

References

1. America's Youngest Outcasts 2010. (2011) Ellen L. Bassuk, MD, Christina Murphy, Natalie Thompson Coupe, Rachael R. Kenney, Corey Anne Beach. National Center on Family Homelessness Retrieved December 28, 2011 from: http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/media/NCFH_AmericaOutcast2010_web.pdf
2. United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (2011). Opening doors: Homelessness among families fact sheet. Retrieved from: http://www.usich.gov/
3. Testing a Typology of Family Homelessness Based on Patterns of Public Shelter Utilization in Four U.S. Jurisdictions: Implications for Policy and Program Planning. (2007) Dennis Culhane, Stephen Metraux, Jung Min Park, Maryanne Schretzman, and Jesse Valente Housing Policy Debate, V. 18, Issue 1. Fannie Mae Foundation. http://partnering-for-change.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/CulhaneTestingATypologyOfFamilyHomelessness.pdf
4. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Community Planning and Development (2011). The 2010 annual homeless assessment report to Congress. Retrieved from: http://www.hudhre.info/documents/2010HomelessAssessmentReport.pdf
5. National Center on Family Homelessness. (2009). America’s youngest outcasts: State report card on child homelessness. Available at: www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/pdf/rc_full_report.pdf.
6. U.S. Department of Education (2004). FY 2003 Guidance for the education for homeless children and youth program. Retrieved from: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/homeless/index.html