Over 1,000 Lexington students are homeless. How are city, Fayette Schools addressing it?

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Fayette County Public Schools has spent more than $1 million in the past four years to help the more than 1,000 kids and their families who are homeless, while the city of Lexington spends about $400,000 a year to assist unhoused children.

But a local teachers union says that’s not enough, especially considering much of the money was federal coronavirus funding that has since dried up.

“Up to this point, our local government and school district have largely relied on federal pandemic relief funds as a Band-Aid approach, to prevent even more families from being unhoused and to provide resources within the classroom,” said James Woodhead, a community organizer with KY120 United-AFT.

The Fayette County school system recorded 1,097 children who qualified as homeless during the recently concluded school year, according to KY120. To boot, rents in Lexington continue to rise, placing even more children and their families at risk for homelessness, the group argued.

Both the school system and city need to give more attention to this problem in their annual budgets for the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1, KY120 said in a written release.

“Neither budget appears to adequately prioritize and address the significance of the affordable housing crisis,” the group said.

The number of children counted as homeless in Fayette County Public Schools has remained largely the same over the past several years. The U.S. Department of Education has a different definition of homeless than the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees annual counts of homeless people throughout the country.

Under federal education guidelines, students who are living with relatives or friends are counted as homeless. Federal housing officials do not count people living with other people as homeless.

Both city and school district officials said they have spent millions trying to address student homelessness over the past four years. City officials said they have not cut programs that were once funded through coronavirus relief funds. In fact, city officials have increased local dollars spent on affordable housing, they said.

Still, KY120 says more must be done to address affordable housing for families with school-age children.

“While the City Council did increase the affordable housing fund, based on a small percentage of the city’s revenue, it has been severely underfunded compared to what studies have recommended since its creation,” Woodhead said.

How much the school district spends

Since 2021, Fayette County Public Schools has spent $1,034,347 to address the needs of homeless students, according to budget documents requested by the Herald-Leader.

Much of that money was federal funds.

The federal government gives grants to some school districts to help pay for costs associated with homeless students called McKinney Vento funding. Fayette County Public Schools has received these grants for years.

The vast majority of Fayette County Public School’s funding came through two main sources —McKinney Vento and federal coronavirus relief funds. The school system spent $403,736 in McKinney Vento funds, $454,136 in federal coronavirus relief funds, $149,196 in donations and $27,279 in other funding, according to budget documents. The federal coronavirus relief funding has been exhausted.

The Lexington Herald-Leader obtained the information through an Open Records Act request.

McKinney Vento “is a federal grant that is applied for every two years. There were ESSER [federal COVID recovery] funds utilized during the pandemic that will no longer be available,” said Dia Davidson-Smith, a school district spokeswoman.

“We serve in a support role with the city in the area of homelessness. We are a liaison, working with various city partners, referring students and families to available city/state/federal outlets,” said Davidson-Smith.

How much the city spends

The city of Lexington has spent $127.4 million on homeless mitigation programs, , affordable housing and eviction prevention over the past four years, according to information provided by the city and various budget documents.

But only about $400,000 in each of the current and coming fiscal year budgets — less than 1% — — has been set aside specifically to house and help Fayette County public school students and their families who may be experiencing homelessness.

The city’s focus is on the much larger problem of homelessness in general. City officials said while federal coronavirus relief funding bolstered funding for homeless and affordable housing efforts in the past, they have not cut those programs now that those COVID funds are gone.

The city’s recently passed $532.9 million budget for next fiscal year doubled the amount spent on affordable housing, despite all federal coronavirus relief funds being exhausted, said Charlie Lanter, the commissioner of Housing Advocacy and Community Development for the city. Lanter’s office oversees homeless prevention and affordable housing.

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, the city has traditionally given $2 million per year to the affordable housing fund. Due to changes instituted by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council that requires a certain percentage of the budget be set aside for affordable housing, that number has jumped to $4.75 million for the upcoming fiscal year. The amount spent on homelessness has also doubled from $750,000 to more than $1.4 million.

“While it is true that some [American Rescue Plan] state and local rescue funds were used in recent years to support local programs like the Office of Homelessness Prevention & Intervention, none of those funds were cut or reduced in the new budget when the pandemic response funds were exhausted,” Lanter said.

The city’s various other programs — from affordable housing funding to eviction prevention — have helped an unknown number of Fayette County Public School students stay housed or secure housing, city officials said.

Some of the programs and projects the city has funded to reduce or address homelessness over the past four years included:

• $54 million in one-time federal money to pay rent and utilities for people at risk of being evicted

• $150,000 for one-time application fees for people trying to access rental housing

• $200,000 for a mediation program to help Lexington-Fayette Urban County Housing Authority tenants facing eviction

• $130,000 for a senior emergency housing program

• $1.7 million for the Hope Center Emergency Shelter to help with overflow during cold weather months

That funding does not include annual appropriations the city gives to social service providers to house the homeless, outreach teams to encourage those living outside to seek shelter, and a host of other services. The city allocated $7.8 million to homeless service providers in the current fiscal year that ends June 30.