House Education hears testimony on rising youth homelessness; witnesses urge codifying McKinney‑Vento and expanding school-based housing navigation

The House Education Committee convened April 28 for Youth Homelessness Awareness Day and heard testimony from state and nonprofit officials who said youth homelessness in Vermont is increasing and that schools play a central role in preventing and mitigating its effects.

"There are four million young people ages 13 to 25 experiencing some form of homelessness in the United States each year," Lauren Hickby, deputy advocate at the Office of the Child, Youth and Family Advocate, told the committee, citing national estimates and the Department of Housing and Urban Development's point‑in‑time data showing about 40% of unaccompanied youth were unsheltered in the 2023 PIT count. Hickby said Vermont figures reinforce the urgency: the state's 2025 point‑in‑time count found 3,386 unhoused people, about 19% of whom were children under 18, and she reported that as of April 6, 2026, 257 eligible families with children were in General Assistance emergency housing.

Why it matters: Witnesses said housing instability and gaps in emergency shelter drive chronic absenteeism and interrupt students' education. "Transportation remains the huge barrier across the state," Hickby told lawmakers, adding that regional transit schedules and Medicaid transportation rules often fail to meet the hours and geographic reach needed to keep students connected to schools.

Representative Kate Logan, who co‑chairs the Vermont Committee to End Youth Homelessness and directs a statewide coalition of youth providers, told the committee that limited federal funding and a fragmented service network leave large parts of Vermont as "service deserts." Logan said federal runaway and homeless youth funding has been essentially level for decades, leaving too few beds and regional programs to serve unaccompanied minors.

Local perspective: Jeff Hunsburgger, a social worker with the Loyal County Family Center, described his area as a service desert and recounted that local schools are often the primary referral source for at‑risk youth. He said his supervisory unions identify dozens of students under McKinney‑Vento protections but lack nearby shelter capacity, and that small local agencies once ran licensed shelter homes that closed when grant structures changed.

School-based solutions: Christina Brown, chief program officer at Spectrum Youth & Family Services, described a Champlain Valley School District pilot that embeds a Housing Support Services Coordinator (HSSC) in the schools to provide housing navigation. Brown said the HSSC has moved 73 families (more than 200 children) from literal homelessness into stable housing and stabilized another 38 families since the pilot started in 2022. She told the committee that the role is a full‑time housing navigation job — meeting landlords, helping establish rental history, and doing daily casework — and that funding for the position has been a mix of school district support and the state's Housing Opportunity Program through the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Policy proposals and constraints: Panelists urged stronger, sustained investment in school‑embedded housing navigation, expanded Mckinney‑Vento liaison capacity (including multilingual liaisons), and attention to transportation policies that currently break connections when families move or lack addresses. Hickby and others recommended exploring whether Vermont should codify McKinney‑Vento protections — the federal law that secures immediate school enrollment and transportation for students experiencing homelessness — into state statute to ensure consistent application and local funding support.

Claims and context: Witnesses said unaccompanied youth are hard to count because the PIT count and many local counts miss youth who are couch‑surfing or otherwise hidden from street counts; the Agency of Education McKinney‑Vento reporting recorded 121 unaccompanied homeless youth in the most recent school year, a figure witnesses said has roughly doubled in five years. Panelists also said LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented among unaccompanied minors, and that family poverty, parental substance use, and family conflict are common contributing factors.

What the committee will do next: Committee members asked detailed questions about funding and program reliability; witnesses described unstable grant sources and competitive federal NOFO cycles that favor larger providers. The session ended with lawmakers thanking witnesses and signaling interest in follow‑up on transportation, statewide coordination, and legislation; the committee noted it would reconvene the following morning at 9:15 for separate testimony.

Quotes used in this article are drawn from testimony by Lauren Hickby (deputy advocate, Office of the Child, Youth and Family Advocate), Representative Kate Logan (co‑chair, Vermont Committee to End Youth Homelessness), Jeff Hunsburgger (MSW, Loyal County Family Center), and Christina Brown (chief program officer, Spectrum Youth & Family Services).