“The situation is pretty dire right now with homelessness in the Helena area,” said Michele Zentz, homeless liaison for Helena Public Schools.
Hundreds of students in the Helena area are experiencing homelessness—couch surfing, sleeping in their cars, unsure when their next meal will be.
We are just about a month into the 2025-2026 academic year, and Helena Public Schools has already identified 253 students who meet the definition of homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. That is 43 more students than at this time last year.
(WATCH: School officials talk about rise in homeless student population)
“We track the students who are experiencing homelessness in our school district,” said Kaitlyn Hess, director of assessment and federal programs. “We receive federal funding for those students. We want to remove barriers that students have to accessing education when they are experiencing homelessness.”
This issue extends beyond Helena. East Helena Public Schools officials say they have students experiencing homelessness, too.
As a smaller district, they have fewer students facing homelessness than Helena Public Schools, but teachers still see the impact on their students.
“Homelessness for students' abilities is huge,” said Ethan Hoffman, school counselor and homeless liaison for East Helena Public Schools. “You know, we talk about getting those basic human needs and having those met before we can even consider functioning in a social environment or in an educational environment.”
On top of going to school and doing homework, these students face additional difficulties.
“So the challenging thing about being unsheltered in Helena is they are constantly on the move, and that creates a hard, it's a hard life,” said Jeff Buscher, community impact coordinator for United Way.
There are resources in the community to help. Different organizations offer shelter, transportation services to help kids get to school, clothing, school supplies, food, and more.
“We as a school district are there to make sure they are on equal footing as any kiddo who has permanent housing,” said Zentz.
There are many ways members of the community can help these kids and their families—find more information on these organizations below:
