Overall, roughly about 5% of students with disabilities experience homelessness , while slightly fewer students without disabilities do—making students with disabilities over‑represented among those who are unhoused.

What the data says

  • A multi‑state study covering seven U.S. states and Washington, D.C. found that 4.7% of students with disabilities were experiencing homelessness , compared with 3.0% of students without disabilities in the same areas.
  • That means students with disabilities are about 1.6 times more likely to be homeless than their non‑disabled peers at the school‑district level in those regions.

How that “represents” the homeless‑student group

  • In these seven states and D.C., students with disabilities make up a larger share of the homeless‑student population than their share of the total student body , because they are both more numerous overall and more likely to be unhoused.
  • Put simply: a notable minority—but not most—of unhoused students have a disability , with available estimates clustering near the “about one‑in‑five” (20%) ballpark when interpreting multiple education‑policy and homework‑type sources in context.

Quick visual summary

Aspect| Students with disabilities| Students without disabilities
---|---|---
Share experiencing homelessness (multi‑state snapshot)| 4.7% 135| 3.0% 15
Relative risk of homelessness| ~1.6× higher 15| 1.0 (baseline)

Information gathered from public forums, news outlets, and research‑based summaries available on the internet and portrayed here.