Student homelessness soars in Wisconsin, relates to youth criminal justice involvement

​By Alexandria Staubach
 
The number of students experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin increased from 13,499 in the 2020-2021 school year to a record high of 20,195 in the 2023-2024 school year.
 
This is the third consecutive year of increase after hitting an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wisconsin Department of Education has tracked its students’ housing data since 2019.
 
The numbers come from an April report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
 
The high 2023-2024 number is a 9.1% increase over the previous year, despite increased enrollment of only 1.1%, the report says.

Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Student Homelessness at a New High," April 2025.

 
The prevalence of homelessness cuts along sadly predictable lines. English learners and students with disability experience homelessness at a rate of 5.6% and 3.9% respectively. The rate for students of color is 5.5%, according to the report.

​While the report shows an increase in young students experiencing homelessness, it also shows the rate increasing dramatically as students age and are more likely to be “unaccompanied.” Unaccompanied students are those without a parent or other adult to supervise them.
 
The Milwaukee Public School system alone serves 23.7% of the total population of students experiencing homelessness and 40.7% of the state’s unaccompanied unhoused students.

Other urban districts account for 37.9% of the state's students experiencing homelessness, while school districts in suburbs, towns, and rural areas total 38.3%.

Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Student Homelessness at a New High," April 2025.

​To understand the relationship between criminal justice involvement and youth homelessness, WJI talked with DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer for Pathfinders. Pathfinders provides direct services to youth experiencing homelessness, based on individual need.
 
Williams-Clark said that some youths find themselves involved in the criminal justice system while trying to avoid homelessness. “Young people who are facing instability, so they don’t end up in the street, they are creative with how they meet the cost of living without support,” she said.
 
Williams-Clark said that in Milwaukee, Pathfinders sees youth who are “criminalized for survival.” She has seen instances where young people are coerced or forced into behaviors that they might not even know are against the law.
 
“A lot of youth are just trying to survive in the community alone” and butt up against law enforcement because of it, she said. For example, while Milwaukee does not have encampment laws, youth located outside the city are sometimes criminalized for sleeping in tents when they may have no place else to go, she said.
 
The rising costs and general unavailability of housing contribute to the problem, Williams-Clark said.
 
“Criminal justice involvement doesn’t help end homelessness and results in hopelessness,” said Williams-Clark. She said homelessness coupled with criminal justice involvement makes it more difficult for young people to see a path forward. “As a community it costs us even more,” she said.
 
According to Voices of Youth Count, a national study documenting the prevalence of youth homelessness, 46% of youth who experience homelessness had also been in a juvenile detention facility, prison, or jail. The study found that unhoused youths nationally are more susceptible to status offenses—conduct that would not be a crime but for age. They are more likely to be ticketed for offenses like breaking curfew or running away than their housed counterparts.
 
The same study showed that unhoused youths who have been in foster care demonstrated a greater likelihood of being involved in the juvenile justice system and were more likely to identify as LGBTQ+.
 
Those findings are consistent with what Pathfinders sees in Milwaukee. Williams-Clark said that the majority of the youths Pathfinders works with identify as Black or African American. Many young clients have a mental health issue, and a sizeable portion are part of the LGBTQ+ community.