WESTWOOD—A newly released report from UCLA found that 298,254 K-12 students were homeless in California during the 2024-2025 school year. This was the highest number ever recorded in the state and marked a 10 percent increase since the 2018-2019 school year.
Researchers analyzed data from the California Department of Education to understand how homeless students performed compared to their peers. The findings showed that unhoused students scored roughly 20 percent lower than housed peers on state academic benchmarks.
Seven of the ten school districts with the highest counts of students experiencing homelessness were in Southern California. Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties together accounted for half of the state’s homeless student population.
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