Number of Oregon homeless students continues to climb

Nearly 4 percent of Oregon’s K-12 students are homeless, according to data announced Wednesday by the Oregon Department of Education.

For the 2016-17 school year, 22,541 students met the federal definition of lacking “a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence,” according to ODE. It is the fourth year in a row the number has gone up.

Dona Bolt, Oregon coordinator for the McKinney-Vento federal grant program for homeless students, attributes the increase to better reporting efforts as well as a lack of affordable housing and family-wage jobs. Student homelessness in Oregon has climbed 5.6 percent since the previous year and 19.2 percent since 2014.