The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (McKinney-Vento Act) is federal legislation that ensures the educational rights and protections of children and youths experiencing homelessness. It requires all local educational agencies (LEAs) to ensure that homeless students have access to the same free, appropriate public education, including public preschools, as provided to other children and youths.

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The McKinney-Vento Act defines “homeless children and youths” as children and youth who lack fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence; including children and youth who are:

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• Sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reasons; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals

• Living at a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designated for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings;

• Living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

• Migratory children who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described above;

• Unaccompanied youth, including any youth not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian, such as runaways, or youth denied housing by their families.