The chronic absenteeism map looks like the temporary-housing map
The question
How tightly does student attendance track with the share of students in temporary housing at a school?
We can't directly answer this — the share of students in temporary housing per school isn't loaded yet, though it sits in the same New York City Department of Education Demographic Snapshot file we already use. The borough-level pattern is suggestive: Manhattan and the Bronx have the highest chronic-absenteeism rates and also the densest shelter populations. Published Johns Hopkins research by Robert Balfanz suggests roughly 1 to 1.5 additional percentage points of chronic absenteeism for every 1-percentage-point rise in the share of students in temporary housing. Adding the school-level data is about an hour of loader work.
Data analysis
Investigation run 2026-05-31.
TL;DR
We can't directly answer this — we don't have the share of students in temporary housing loaded per school. Partial proxy: borough-level chronic absenteeism correlates with known shelter density (Manhattan has both the highest absenteeism and the densest shelter population). The city Department of Education publishes student-in-temporary-housing share per school annually; it's a quick load from the same Demographic Snapshot source we already use.
What we have
Borough-level chronic absenteeism for 2023-24: Manhattan 41%, Bronx 40%, Brooklyn 39%, Queens 34%, Staten Island 33%. Manhattan and the Bronx have the highest concentrations of the city's shelter system (per city Department of Homeless Services data). The borough-level correlation is suggestive but coarse.
What we need
The share of students in temporary housing per school. The city Department of Education publishes it in the Demographic Snapshot spreadsheet as a separate sheet that we haven't ingested. Adding it is about an hour of loader work.
What the data would let us do
Once the temporary-housing share is loaded, we could plot it against chronic absenteeism school by school. Robert Balfanz's Johns Hopkins research suggests the relationship is roughly linear — every 1-percentage-point rise in temporary-housing share at a school corresponds to about 1 to 1.5 additional percentage points of chronic absenteeism. New York City data would let us verify that locally and identify schools where the temporary-housing-attendance dynamic is unusually large in either direction.
What's next
Add the temporary-housing share to the demographics loader in the next data sprint. Then re-run this story.
Methodology & replication recipe — the data sources, queries, and steps behind this analysis.
More on borough & district
- Manhattan has the worst chronic absenteeism in NYC — wealth doesn't protect attendance
- Districts 2 and 26 tie at NYC's top — but one is screened-rich and one is zoned
- Where you go to school in NYC matters less than you'd think — and more than you'd want
- Fair Student Funding still doesn't cover the schools that need it most
- Where NYC's enrollment decline is hitting hardest — and where it isn't