McKinney-Vento Homeless Children and Youth Program
Ohio Valley Educational Service Center

The McKinney Vento Act defines homelessness as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence”. This could entail the following conditions:

1. “Doubled up” or sharing housing with another person or family due to economic hardship, loss of housing or another reason
2. Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate housing
3. Living in emergency or transitional shelter
4. Abandoned in Hospitals
5. Living in a car, park, public space, abandoned building, substandard housing, bus or train station or a similar setting
6. Migrant Children as defined by the Elementary and Secondary Act, as mentioned specifically in the definition of homeless, as migrant families often live in conditions of poverty and may not be able to afford fixed, regular, and adequate housing. Migrant children and youth, however, are not categorically McKinney-Vento eligible; rather they are eligible to the extent that their living arrangement is one described in the Act’s definition of homeless:

McKinney-Vento Definition – National Center for Homeless Education