Brian Lear on WNYC, Senator Gillibrand coming up in about a half hour. Now let's spend some time looking at

disturbing new numbers shining a light on the plight of New York

City public school children who are unhoused. According to the nonprofit, advocates for children,

146,000 students attending a New York City public school during the last school year were homeless.

That's one in eight students in the whole system. Analysis of this data

shows that's a 22% increase from the previous year. So if you have a child in a regular public

school, it's highly likely that at least one student in their classroom is living in the shelter

system or staying in the home of family or friends.

Now, your first thought might be, oh, this increase is because of the influx of migrants the

city received in that last year. Well, just yesterday, migrant children also made headlines

as Mayor Adams lifted the 60-day limit on shelter stays for families with kids from kindergarten to sixth grade,

allowing them to remain in their schools.

While children new to the city definitely make up some of this increase in homelessness,

experts like Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Wynn,

the largest provider of shelter and supportive services, for homeless families in New York City, not homeless single people, homeless families, warns against writing the issue off as simply a, quote, migrant problem.

And Christine Quinn is with us now to share how she's seeing this crisis unfold in classrooms and wind shelters and what might be done about it.

Chris Quinn, welcome back to WNYC. Hi.

Thank you very much.

First, give us your initial reaction to hearing that statistic.

It comes from an advocacy group, not from the city itself.

So do you take that number at face value?

Absolutely. I mean,

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