Alarming reports that 154,000 New York City public-school students are “homeless” rely on a dubious definition used in no other context.

Per the city Department of Homeless Services , fewer than 31,000 children now live in the shelter system. In fact, the entire count is just 86,000 people, roughly half the number of schoolchildren you’re being told are homeless.

What gives?

A federal law that lets homeless kids attend the same school, even if they leave the district, defines homelessness as lacking a “fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.”

But this has come to include, for instance, a single mother and her children staying with a relative, or even a teen mother who still lives with her own mom.

Living “doubled-up” like this may not be ideal, but it’s not living

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