Trump/US House Proposes Eliminating Homeless Education
More than 1 million children would lose support
The FY2026 budget proposes to completely eliminate funding for the McKinney-Vento Act’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program, which served more than 1 million children in School Year 2023. Of that 1 million, more than 46,000 were Pennsylvania’s children.
The proposal claims that schools could choose to use funds from a newly created block grant to serve homeless students, but there would be no requirement to do so.
Pennsylvania would lose $5 million. Would the state pick that up? We have been asking the state to invest $10 million into the program over the past eighteen months with no positive results.
We met with the Governor’s policy and education teams, the House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle, and nothing.
The overall answer is that there isn’t any money leftover.
We are working with SchoolHouse Connection to alert our Congressional delegation.
Learn more and find out how to take action by viewing https://bit.ly/3FGzqKd .
Thanks once again Joe for keeping the needs of the children front and center. The McKinney-Vento program is THE ONLY program in our nation for those experiencing homelessness WHO ARE CHILDREN!!!!! And it addresses the kinds of homelessness through its definition that impact their ability to be healthy, develop and learn. We must share with representatives this fact. There are so many children from birth through high school who experience homelessness and they, too, need to have something in our national policy that addresses their needs and as SchoolHouse Connection has pointed out, without having the designated structure and funding of McKinney-Vento there is no guarantee that this population of our neediest children will be found and supported in ways that work for them. Evidence is that efforts would be hit and miss at best. Such an important time to give these children a voice!!! Thanks, Joe, and all for ensuring just that.