A UCLA report in the daily Bruin, published in October, found that 20% of California Community College students and 5% of University of California students are experiencing homelessness. Around 70% of students experiencing homelessness are Latinx and 9% are Black, while 54% of students not experiencing homelessness are Latinx, the report found.

The report also detailed federal and state funding issues that failed to address student homelessness.

The report said a total of $10 million in subgrants from the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal funding program that supports the education of students experiencing homelessness, only reached 106 of 1,037 school districts in California. Researchers found that two-thirds of students experiencing homelessness in California attend schools without MVA funding.

With the pandemic, schools were forced to close in March and students had to cope with distance learning and many of the challenges that came with it, the report said. For students who were housing insecure, this sometimes meant losing their homes, meal access and technology.

The pandemic’s public health challenges have also exacerbated the learning disparities between students experiencing homelessness and students with stable housing conditions, the report said.

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