Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Washington's Homeless Student Count Continues To Climb

Derrick Story via Flickr, Creative Commons

More than 35,000 public school students in Washington were homeless last school year, according to new figures released Tuesday.

About 3.3 percent of Washington students are homeless.

More than two-thirds of those kids are in families that are doubled up with other families. The number of kids living in hotels and in shelters continues to rise, as well.

The state counted more than 1,600 kids living completely without shelter, up from 1,036 in 2011.

"It's been, by my calculations, at least seven years in a row that the numbers have been increasing," said Nathan Olson, communications director for Washington's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

"And that's a shame, it's very much a shame. No student should have to worry, at four o'clock in the afternoon, where am I going to sleep tonight?"

Oregon has fewer students overall than Washington, but more Oregon students are categorized as completely lacking shelter than in Washington. Oregon had 2,272 "unsheltered" students last year, according to the Oregon Department of Education. Washington had 1,601.

Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting

Rob Manning has been both a reporter and an on-air host at OPB. Before that, he filled both roles with local community station KBOO and nationally with Free Speech Radio News. He's also published freelance print stories with Portland's alternative weekly newspaper Willamette Week and Planning Magazine. In 2007, Rob received two awards for investigative reporting from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists, and he was part of the award-winning team responsible for OPB's "Hunger Series." His current beats range from education to the environment, sports to land-use planning, politics to housing.