As thousands of students preparing for the start of a new school year worry about what classes they will take and what friends they will make, some of their peers face an even greater problem: homelessness.

Data from the Michigan Department of Education shows that out of the nearly 50,000 students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, 6.6% experienced homelessness during the 2023-2024 school year.  

Finding those students is often difficult, leading the Detroit Public School Community District to place a faculty liaison trained to identify those struggling, as part of the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

"We need more champions to give voice to it, to fund it, to look systematically at how we solve it, because our children are suffering as a result of it," said Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of Family and Community Engagement at DPSCD.

One local organization at the forefront of this work is the Homeless Action Network of Detroit. The organization serves as Metro Detroit's lead agency for continuum of care, a model created by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address the problem of housing insecurity in cities across the country.

"When youth are experiencing homelessness and entering our system, it looks a lot different than the way that adults experience homelessness," said Meredith Baughman, youth homelessness coordinator with the Homeless Action Network of Detroit. "We do have a lot of really wonderful community-based agencies who do try to work directly with young people to meet those needs."

With nearly 4,000 students experiencing some level of housing insecurity within the Detroit public school system, resources like the Detroit Phoenix Center's Youth-Up Mobile Center focus on bringing things directly to those who need them most.

"We connect with the schools, we provide after-school programs, we provide those basic needs," said Chantel Hicks, director of operations at the Detroit Phoenix Center.

Hicks says the massive bus was created to eliminate the transportation barrier that may prevent students from asking for help.

"We will begin to show up to different school sites in different areas around the city where young people can access us and get the resources that they need," said Hicks.

Complete with full-service intake, showers, food and places to study or relax, Hicks says the mission was simple. The goal is to make sure no one gets left behind.

"It was important to create it because we like to meet youth where they are," said Hicks.

District leaders say they are currently going through professional development training ahead of the start of the school year to give faculty the tools they need to better support the families that need help.