According to the 1987 federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, students are considered homeless when they “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.”  

Cleveland broke that down for VoxPopuli in a phone interview.

“So [lacking] fixed would mean that it could be moved, like a tent or an RV,” she said. “Then adequate, it might be a bug infestation or kids sleeping on the floor … and regular would mean they could be kicked out at any time. This includes our hotels and our shared housing situation.” Affordability is the primary driver. “They can’t just be down here looking for a new home and qualify. It has to be due to financial hardship because they can’t find a place to live.”

The OCPS 2024-2025 nighttime status data shows that some students are sleeping in homeless shelters, motels or an “other” category. “Other” is a catch-all for a wide range of inadequate housing situations that can include cars, on the street or in other substandard housing with broken doors, windows, infestations and non-existent or faulty plumbing.

Most Ocoee, Winter Garden and Windermere students experiencing homelessness reported staying in shared housing — essentially couch-surfing with friends, a boyfriend/girlfriend or extended family. While shared housing provides a place to sleep besides the streets or a car, Cleveland explained that it can still be risky.  

“A big piece of it is that they can be kicked out at any time,” she said. “If they get in a fight with the friend or family member that they're living with, then they are on the streets. We see some families that are bouncing between different people because maybe they just don't want them there. There's just this instability for many of those families in shared housing.”

‍

‍

Here’s where those 550 students are located, according to OCPS:

Ocoee has the highest number of students who are homeless among the four municipalities VoxPopuli examined.

Among its four elementary schools, one middle school and one high school, are 324 students who are homeless. The majority — 291 — are in shared housing situations. Two students reported living in a shelter. Eight are in motels, and 23 are in the “other” category.

Ocoee City Manager Craig Shadrix told VoxPopuli in a text message Saturday that he had questions about the data but that "anytime children are in a homeless situation it is tragic, and I am open to dialogue with OCPS and Orange County to see what can be done and what is being done."

Winter Garden, with six elementary schools, three middle schools and one high school, has 223 students who are homeless. Of that number, 180 are living in shared housing, while six reported they are living in shelters, 12 are in motels and 25 described their housing as “other.”

Oakland has a single school, the Oakland Avenue Charter School, which it oversees. Two students there are in shared housing.

In Windermere, there is one student in shared housing at the elementary school within the town limits. Windermere High School has 12 students in shared housing, three in motels and four in "other." Windermere Mayor Jim O'Brien pointed out that the high school is not located within the Town of Windermere and pulls students from a "broad catchment area" so it is not included in the overall numbers.

O'Brien told VoxPopuli via text on Saturday that "if there is someone from town in a precarious housing situation, we will be happy to assist, but I'm not aware of anyone as of today."

The people who work in the schools and see these kids daily believe the numbers of homeless students are actually higher than what the data shows. They believe there are more families out there staying quiet out of shame for being homeless along with the fear that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) could take their children. (Cleveland told VoxPopuli that DCF removes children for neglect not homelessness.)

“I definitely feel that there are kids who are unidentified, and I don't know how to go about identifying them other than continuing to make really great relationships with kids, which is what we do,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt and her children were homeless for nine months, staying in a woman's roach-infested house, while she was going through her divorce. “You could open a cabinet and there were maggots in there,” she recalled. She's thankful her kids have no memory of that experience.

Leavitt remembers the dread she felt when the woman wanted them out. “When she decided it was time for us to leave, it was time for us to leave. It was a panic because I didn’t necessarily have a place to go,” she said.

Well settled now, Leavitt has been paying it forward. For a time, she had two homeless kids, friends of her daughter’s, living in her house along with her three children. She calls them her “bonus kids.” One girl had been sleeping in a shed. The other had been couch surfing with friends until she landed with her boyfriend who turned abusive.

“He held a knife to her throat,” Leavitt said. “How [could] I expect her to go to school and do anything?”

That was a year and a half ago. Both girls are now in college — one at University of Central Florida, the other at Valencia College. They’re thriving now, having been nurtured in a “consistent, loving home where there’s always food and [they] don’t have to be afraid,” Leavitt said. “These kids just need a place where they can lay their heads and not be afraid.”  

Leavitt would take in more students if she could identify them. She knows students slip under the radar because Ocoee High School hadn’t identified the two girls who stayed with her when they were seniors. “The high school had no idea what was going on in their lives. So how many more kids are out there that are literally living day to day, place to place?” she wonders.

Students and by extension families may not know about the rights and protections provided under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Under that law, homeless students have the the right to enroll in school without certain documents, like a lease. They have the right to stay in their “school of origin” through the school year if housing needs have forced them to move out of the school zone. They're also entitled to free transportation to and from school if they're more than two miles away.

“ The McKinney-Vento Act believes that their school should maintain the same even when everything else changes outside of school,” McGowan said. “What saves these kids is this program. The only way these kids are making it out is because of the benefits they’re entitled to because of it.”

“School is consistent,” Leavitt said. “The teachers are the same every day. The administration is the same every day. Your friends are here, and we know what a huge role peers play as kids get older. And so consistency in schooling is just so big. Anything we can do to keep kids in their school with their teachers, with those positive relationships, that's what we want to do.”

Students who are homeless, McGowan said, are good about ensuring that others who are homeless get their benefits. “These kids that are unaccompanied, they’re almost like the lookouts at school. When they're in class and they're talking to their peers, they're just kind of listening and observing. If they hear of a classmate that also got kicked out, they literally bring them up to my room and they introduce me. Then I start the paperwork, and then they get what's called coded. So they get identified as being homeless and being unaccompanied and homeless so that they can get more services.”

McGowan's talking about getting students who are on their own without parents signed up for food stamps and health insurance and helping them get a job. But also miscellaneous things like making sure a senior has a cap and gown for graduation. And when teachers know students are in the McKinney-Vento program, there are that many more eyes looking out for their wellbeing, she said.

"If they've been absent for a while, if the teacher is paying close attention, then they reach out to myself or our guidance counselor to say, Hey, I haven't seen this person in a while. I know he's an MVP kid. Can you check in?"