The number of homeless children in the United States surged by 8% in 2013 to nearly 2.5 million, according to a new study that attributes the record-breaking figure to a shortage of affordable housing and the lingering effects of a jobless economic recovery.
The report published Monday by the National Center on Family Homelessness combined the U.S. Department of Education’s existing estimate of homelessness among school-age children, 1.5 million, with independent tallies for younger children not yet at school. The revised total suggests that one in every 30 children in the U.S. experienced homelessness in 2013.
The study authors attribute the elevated rates of homelessness to a sluggish economic recovery, compounded by a housing market that has priced out unemployed and low income families. California, in particular, was hard hit with 527,000 homeless children, accounting for one-fifth of the national total.
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