Oregon Homeless Students: Number Reaches Record Level

The number of students in Oregon considered homeless has reached a record level, according to a report released Tuesday by the state department of education. The report found 21,340 students - nearly four percent - are homeless.

More than one third - around 7,600 - of those students are in Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas Counties.

"We know that students dealing with difficult life circumstances have a much harder time in the classroom," said Deputy Superintendent Salam Noor. "Our goal is to make the school environment as stable as possible for homeless students through the hard work of school district homeless liaisons and their partners, who provide direct services to homeless families and youths in communities throughout the state."

Oregon received $613,967 in federal McKinney-Vento Act funds in 2015-16 to serve homeless students. More than 75 percent of this amount went to districts in the form of competitive sub-grants. The money helps offset the costs of school transportation and other services for homeless students.

"Expansion of services in recent years into early childhood programs has created awareness of the extent of homelessness among Oregon’s youngest children," said Dona Bolt, state coordinator of the federal McKinney-Vento Program that provides funding and support for homeless student education.

"While Head Start programs continue to broaden their enrollment of these most-in-need children, Oregon Child Care programs are also working to train 25,000 child care providers in the state about working with homeless families."

The largest number of homeless students are found in the larger cities, which is to be expected. Portland, the state's largest city, has one of the highest numbers of homeless students - 1,434. But when looked by percentage, Portland's homeless student population is only just under three percent.

As you move further east in Multnomah County, the percentages go higher.

More than eight percent of students in the Parkrose School District are homeless. In the Reynolds School District, the number is nearly 10 percent though that's an improvement over the previous year when 11.54 percent of students were homeless.

There were some bright spots. Lake Oswego had the smallest percentage of homeless students of any district in the tri-county region that had any homeless students.

The report found that that majority of homeless students across the state - 16,153 - live in what's called shared housing, where more than one family lives. More than 2,300 live on the streets, while nearly 2,000 are in shelters, and more than 1,200 in motels.

By grade, the highest number of homeless students are seniors - 2,450 - followed by children in pre-K - 1,929.

Here is a list of the school district in the tri-county area with the number of homeless students followed by the percentage of total students.

CLACKAMAS

Canby - 357/7.63

Colton - 6/.99

Estacada - 28/1.02

Gladstone - 58/2.67

Lake Oswego - 27/.38

Molalla River -58/2.13

North Clackamas - 374/2.17

Oregon City - 380/4.67

Oregon Trail - 46/1.05

West Linn-Wilsonville - 58/.61

MULTNOMAH

Centennial - 406/6.42

Corbett - 12/.97

David Douglas 471/4.34

Gresham-Barlow 334/2.75

Parkrose 279/8.38

Portland 1,434/2.96

Reynolds 1,128/9.76

Riverdale - 0/0

WASHINGTON

Banks - */.45

Beaverton - 1,382/3.41

Forest Grove - 104/1.68

Gaston - 33/5.37

Hillsboro - 369/1.77

Sherwood - 55/1.04

Tigard-Tualatin - 254/1.98

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