By Betty Márquez Rosales for EdSource
Originally published on August 26, 2026
The number of students experiencing homelessness reached a new statewide peak of over 298,000 in the 2024-25 school year, according to a report published Wednesday by the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. The report is an update to the center’s 2020 report, which found nearly 270,000 students were experiencing homelessness at the time.
The 2024-25 figure is equivalent to more than five times the capacity of Dodger Stadium, which can seat about 56,000 people, according to the report’s authors.
Some of the 2026 report’s findings include:
- One in 12 Black and American Indian/Alaska Native students were identified as homeless in 2024-25.
- Most of the school districts with the highest counts of homeless students were in Southern California.
- Half of the 10 districts with the highest proportions of homeless students were elementary school districts along the Central Coast.
- Suspension and chronic absenteeism rates among homeless students have steadily decreased, but remain exceedingly higher than the overall student population.
- Students experiencing homelessness continue to have lower proficiency rates in math and reading, as well as lower graduation rates, than housed students.
The report’s authors noted some caveats in the number of homeless students identified in 2024-25.
First, it is considered an undercount because it only reflects the students who have been properly identified as being homeless. The definition of homelessness that is used for students under the federal McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act is much more broad and less known than the commonly used definition for federal housing programs.
Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic complicated data-gathering efforts. During the pandemic, there was a sharp downturn in the number of identified homeless students, which student homelessness experts attribute to the challenges of the time. School closures meant school staff could not always see the warning signs that a child might be experiencing housing instability.
The UCLA report relied on publicly available data shared with the California Department of Education by school districts.
