SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The number of homeless children in the U.S. has surged in recent years to an all-time high.
A comprehensive state-by-state report by the National Center on Family Homelessness says one child in every 30 is homeless. It blames the problem on the lack of affordable housing and the impacts of pervasive domestic violence.
The new report calculates that nearly 2.5 million children in America were homeless at some point last year.
The number is based on the Department of Education's latest count of 1.3 million homeless children in public schools, supplemented by estimates of homeless pre-school children not counted by the DOE.
The problem is especially severe in California, which has one-eighth of the U.S. population, but accounts for more than one-fifth of the homeless children — that's nearly 527,000 homeless kids.
