NLIHC’s Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH) campaign has released a new article exploring the role of housing instability in exacerbating the K-12 achievement gap and summarizing the positive impacts of affordable housing on educational outcomes. The achievement gap in education – that is, the disparities in academic outcomes among students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds – is influenced by access to critical resources, including stable, affordable housing. The new article reveals how housing instability leads to high rates of absenteeism and school transfers and disruptions, lower test scores and graduation rates, and greater risks to cognitive development and mental health. These barriers limit access to higher education and career opportunities for students who experience housing instability, perpetuating the cycle of poverty for students from families with low incomes. Read the article.
The article also highlights research demonstrating that access to affordable housing increases the likelihood of children from families with low incomes attending college and earning more as adults. The article concludes by uplifting the OSAH campaign’s policy priorities as a component of any long-term solution for closing the achievement gap in education and calls for collaboration among housing authorities, schools, and local governments to align housing policies with educational reforms and improve educational outcomes for children most impacted by the achievement gap.
Read the article, which was written by OSAH campaign intern Tara Miller, here.