Brenda Farrell calls herself "very nearly the poster child" for homelessness in America. At 29, divorced and fleeing an abusive husband, she and her two young daughters found themselves in a shelter for families on welfare in Massachusetts.

Farrell says that's a pretty typical picture of homelessness: parents (not just single mothers) with one or two children under age 5. She sees families like this every day in her role as the program director of Foundations of Friendly House, a housing program in Worcester, Massachusetts, that provides families a place to stay and services to help them find permanent housing.

For many of us, homelessness calls to mind ragged figures sleeping on park benches, adults battling mental illness and other demons—rarely do we think of children.

The Survey of Hunger and Homelessness in America, a new report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, finds that families with children comprise 40 percent of the homeless population—and are the fastest growing segment. In the cities studied, requests by families for emergency shelter were up 73 percent over the past year (2004).

More than 1.35 million children are homeless on any given night in America, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. That's 10 percent of all kids who live in poverty, and 2 percent of all kids nationwide.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 35 million households face moderate or severe housing problems—from rents that eat up as much as half or more of a family's wages, to apartments with chipping lead paint or faulty wiring, or unsafe or overcrowded houses.

Housing instability crosses all class and race lines, and is slightly more common in rural than urban areas. "We were an upper-middle class family, we lived in a house with a white picket fence. There were ballet lessons. The kids came home everyday with their Esprit bags and Guess! Jeans. And then suddenly we were living in a shelter," says Farrell.

Diverse Causes, Serious Effects
What lands a family on the street, or in a homeless shelter? The causes are as diverse as families themselves—for some, like Brenda Farrell, it's a divorce or escape from an abusive partner. For roughly 20 percent, it's mental illness. For many, it starts with a sudden crisis: a fire, loss of a job, unexpected car repairs. For families without health care—more than 46 million Americans, according to the Census—an illness or disability is all it takes.

Despite the recent economic recession that has left many families struggling, housing prices are still on the rise in most cities and towns. This has led to what many advocates are calling an American housing crisis.

Picture two parents working full time, each earning $5.15 an hour (that's minimum wage), raising one or two children. These parents, who together earn $10.30 an hour, can't afford a two-bedroom apartment at the national Fair Market Rent—it takes $13.87 an hour to do that, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

There are federal programs designed to help families find affordable, safe housing. Section 8 is the largest of these—serving more than 2.6 million households. Under the program, eligible families pay one-third of their income for rent. If that's not enough to cover the fair market price, the federal government pays landlords the difference.

The catch is, it's largely up to the landlord to decide whether to participate. There are no laws requiring communities to have enough Section 8 housing to meet families' needs. To qualify for the federal funds, landlords must rent units at fair market rent, or 80 percent of the median rent in the area. In today's housing market, that can be much lower than surrounding buildings charge. (In a few areas, HUD has made special allowances in what it considers fair market rent to accommodate high-rent areas.)

Waiting lists for subsidized housing are often daunting. "I'd always naively thought there was this support system for people in need when they needed it," says Farrell. "Instead, I found a five- to ten-year waiting list for housing in my town."

Housing Problems Hurt Kids
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, only 35 percent of kids who are homeless are living in shelters—the others live in temporary arrangements with family members, in cars, or campgrounds.

When at shelters, kids do not always get the help they need. "Often, shelters and programs focus on the parents who are in crisis, but of course so are the children," Farrell says. "We see a lot of behavioral issues, a lot of sickness. Kids who are homeless are sicker than other kids."

Kids who are homeless or in unstable housing situations are four times as likely to suffer from asthma, according to research published in Pediatrics. They're also at higher risk for poor nutrition and chronic health problems.

The emotional toll is high, too. Frequent moves often mean repeated losses—of toys, pets, friends and neighborhoods the kids are used to. School-age homeless children are more than twice as likely as other kids to exhibit signs of anxiety, depression and withdrawal.

Farrell's daughters, who were 5 and 8 when they entered the shelter, showed signs of distress almost immediately. "The oldest started sucking her thumb, the youngest wet the bed. They were both riddled with nightmares. My older child had psychosomatic stomachaches from things she'd seen [both in the family and in the shelter]," she says.

And then there's the "parenting in public" phenomenon. Says Phoebe Sores, director of programs at the Better Homes Fund, a national organization that helps homeless families become self-supporting. "At a shelter, regardless of what you do at home, it's no longer Mommy's rules. Bedtimes and discipline may be different. A well-meaning, well-intentioned staff will remind parents about this, and then there's a subtle but big issue about parents' authority in the minds of their children."

Struggling in School
Farrell's daughters were generally good students until the divorce, she says. But the family's moves forced the kids to change schools four times in one year. The disrupted routines and uncertainty made it hard for them to concentrate, and their grades started to slip.

Often, when a housing crisis forces a family to move, public education policies result in the children being forced to leave their familiar school to attend school in the neighborhood where their shelter or emergency housing is located.

New changes to the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which governs education policy for homeless children, make it easier for kids to stay connected to schools even when they're homeless.

Under the new bill, students will be able to continue at their school, and districts must provide the transportation they need to get there. Parents who want to enroll kids in schools can now do so, even if they lack required residency or other documentation.

Each district will have a contact person to work with students who are homeless to make sure they get the help they need—whether it's Head Start, tutoring, special ed services, or school district-sponsored medical and dental care.

These changes are just coming into effect in school districts across the country. It's too early to gauge full impact, but advocates say it's a move in right direction.

Toward a Solid Foundation
The National Alliance to End Homelessness keeps a database of the most promising programs for families facing housing crises. Among their top picks: a Minnesota program that uses state funds to help families remain in their homes and limit the amount of time homeless families spend in shelters. An emergency housing assistance program in Massachusetts provides up to three-month's back rent for families in crisis—helping to stop homelessness before it starts.

The National Housing Trust Fund Campaign is a new movement to help families find stable housing. The campaign proposes using surplus funds from the Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance premiums for community efforts to build and renovate houses and apartments.

Based on several state models already operating, the National Housing Trust Fund would build and preserve 1.5 million more housing units for working families, and create roughly 1.8 million jobs and $50 billion in wages, according to the Center for Community Change. Versions of the federal legislation to create the Trust are currently before the U.S. Congress.

There are also movements afoot to create incentives for landlords to take Section 8 vouchers, and for cities and states to build more low-income or mixed-income housing.

Increasing access to affordable housing is the cornerstone of efforts to combat housing problems. But it's only part of the picture, say advocates. Housing crises destabilize families in many ways, and other supports—health care, counseling, educational services—are critical.

More and more, groups providing housing assistance pay particular attention to the needs of kids. "We've learned that children [in these situations] really benefit from an individual who can help them," says Dawn Moses, director of public policy at the Better Homes Fund. "When you have a person who understands the context of the family, and is there to assess kids' needs and get the resources, that's very helpful."

Web Resources
Find out how more about housing in your state on the National Low Income Housing Coalition's Out of Reach section. Here are some other good resources:

• National Housing Trust Fund Campaign

• National Coalition for the Homeless

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Caitlin Johnson is senior writer/Web manager at Connect for Kids.