By: Danielle Hubley, Advocacy & Education Manager, Partnership for Strong Communities
Imagine for a moment that you are a student –
Your teacher wraps up their lesson, the bell rings, and everyone packs up to head home for the day. “Home” for you feels very different, though. Two nights ago, you and mom were in her car parked in a local commuter lot, curled up with blankets and the seats laid back to try and get comfortable on a chilly night. Tonight, mom was able to get you into a shelter to stay at. The cots line the walls, and a wide array of people fill the space around you. Moms with kids younger than you, an older gentleman weathered by time, two men connecting over a board game in the corner.
The space is warm, but it’s also loud and distracting. You spend most of the night chatting with one of the shelter staff about a movie you both love. After finally feeling settled enough to try and sleep, you find you’re tossing and turning. Will you be able to stay here tomorrow night too? Will we have to sleep in the car again if we can’t? Is there a shower here? A place for mom to do our laundry?
You wake up still a little groggy, not fully rested, and suddenly panic. You’re running late for school – and you entirely forgot about the homework your teacher had given you right before you left school yesterday. You don’t even have time to eat as you put your shoes on, brush your hair and teeth, and leave the shelter to head back to school.
Home isn’t just a physical structure or location for people to be, it is a safe space. It is where we feel comfortable to build safety, routine, and comfort. That stability allows us to grow, develop, and give back to our communities. Without it, it is not hard to imagine how challenging learning can be when you also are in survival mode, just trying to meet your basic needs each day.
On Friday, October 24th, 2025, the Partnership hosted the final webinar in our 2025 series, which explored the intersection of affordable housing and education. Presenters representing education advocacy at the national, state and local levels came together to discuss how the availability of affordable housing impacts access to and the quality of educational opportunities and outcomes for families and communities.
To view the event recording and presenter slides on the Partnership’s YouTube channel, click here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM PRESENTERS:
Below are some highlights, quotes/key takeaways and resources shared from the panelists who presented during this webinar.
Kalimah Muhammad, Research Associate 2025 Cohort, Partnership for Strong Communities
- “The state of Connecticut has a severe lack of comprehensive data on college students who are facing housing instability, poverty, food insecurity. A lot of students are facing issues that are being swept under the rug that the state is not even in tune with.”
- “Between 2019 – 2023, about 19% of Black young people faced poverty, and 22% of Hispanic or Latino young people, compared to 8% of white youth. We need to be looking at why this is happening, and what are the underlying issues?”
- “Teachers want to help, but they don’t necessarily have the resources. They often want to intervene, but they need more support from their school administrators.”
- “We constantly push students academically to take all of these classes, to get A’s, to get into college. If we want to push kids academically, we must find ways to make housing more affordable for our families.” – Middle school teacher in Hartford
Barbara Duffield, Executive Director, SchoolHouse Connection
- “Housing and education are both necessary for stability and success. When you compare chronic absence or high school graduation data for students experiencing homelessness versus students who are housed but low-income, you see a tremendous difference – between 10 to 13%. At the same time, a high-quality education is necessary to obtain and maintain stable housing.”
- “There may not be shelter or housing in every community, but there are public schools in all communities. Educators have their eyes on children and youth day after day, and as such, schools may be more trusted systems for families than other systems.”
Stacey Violante-Cote, Deputy Director, Center for Children’s Advocacy
- “In Connecticut, we define the experience of homelessness for students as “[any] students who lack fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence: This includes sharing housing due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason (“doubled up”).”
- “Young people exiting state systems (child welfare systems, those involved into our justice or mental health care systems). For example, 22% of youth (ages 18-24) who enter Connecticut’s homeless system have a past history of being in foster care. We need to better understand the risk factors, trajectories and outcomes are based on young people’s experiences in transitioning between social systems in place in Connecticut.”
- Below are three Virtual Drop-in ReCenter fliers that speak to different young adult audiences. Feel free to share one or all of these:
- Turning 18 flyer (emerging adult focus): https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:9d47e8a3-65b0-4f27-8ce5-4baea1943fa4
Dr. Nasreen Al Omari, Program Facilitator, East Hartford Adult & Continuing Education
- “Everything that affects our adult students is really a two generational thing because many participants in our program are also parents themselves to students in the K through 12 world. We’ve had students living out of their cars, or who have to wash up in the bathroom because they don’t have space to prepare for their day.”
- “We also see situations, often times for English as a Second Language (ESL) students in particular, saying that they will need to miss class because they need to work in order to pay their rent that month. Housing is so important for stability – when you have students who are going back to get their high school diplomas in order to build more stability for themselves and their families, you’re placing a significant barrier to their ability to build that success by limiting opportunities for housing stability. Students can’t build success in the classroom if they are facing concerns just meeting their basic survival needs.”
Other related resources/references on this topic: