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These days, there's so much news. It can be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community.

The Consider This podcast from NPR features our award-winning journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news.

We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider this podcast from NPR.

Good evening and happy new year. From the KUOW Newsroom. This is Seattle Now. I'm Paige Browning.

It is truly great to be back with some news today after a hiatus of Seattle Now's evening news show.

Let's get into this new year.

Coming up, it's return to office day for Amazon's corporate workers.

More on that in a few minutes. But first, here's our roundup of today's

top stories. It's Thursday, January 2nd. For the second year in a row, Seattle Public Schools

has seen a sizable spike in the number of students experiencing homelessness. Sammy West

has more on this. Over 2,200 students have been or are currently homeless this school year.

That's a nearly 20% increase from last year.

Rogers Green works with unhoused students at Dunlap Elementary.

In recent years, that's included more immigrant families fleeing war-torn countries like Ukraine and Afghanistan.

I just, you know, I can't imagine.

It's like you just drop somewhere and then figure it out, figure out the language, figure out how you're going to live, where you're going to live, how you're going to eat.

You know, and it's survival.

So it's important for us to have those connections.

Specialized school staff like Green help families connect to organizations that provide housing,

...