“I felt like an imposter among my brilliant peers…. I was shamefully worrying about food, and shamefully staring at the clock to make it out of class in time to get in line for the local shelter when I should have been giving my undivided attention to the lecturer.” “Nobody expects a college student or young adult to be homeless,” one homeless Penn State student told The Penn State Collegian in 2017. “When most people hear homeless, they imag- ine an elderly person, a drug addict, or a mentally impaired individual.” Typically, homeless college students fall into two different categories: those who were homeless before they began their studies, and those who became homeless after they began their college career. Though both types contribute to the invisible nature of student homelessness, students in these two categories have unique characteristics. Homeless Before Enrollment I t’s been a common problem for decades—counting unaccom- panied chronically homeless teenagers—because they don’t tend to find shelter in the same places that adults do. Even so, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) estimates that 45,000 unac- companied children and youth live on the streets on any given night. Those youth who realize that a way out of their unstable situations may be higher education find themselves with unique characteristics: • They are quite often the first- generation college student: No immediate family members have set their sights on pursuing a higher education. • They are more familiar with how to seek aid from rescue and shelter organizations. • They are likely unfamiliar with resources available through the school itself and may not understand what financial aid does and does not cover. • They have dealt with the stress of homelessness in conjunction with studying during high school, though they may not understand the higher level of commitment that post-high-school education requires. • They have little or no financial, emotional, or spiritual support from their families. • Quite often these students are youth who have aged out the foster-care system. Homeless After Enrollment W ith the rise of tuition, textbooks, and living expenses, more currently enrolled postsecondary students are finding themselves without a place to sleep. They are vulnerable because the embarrassment of facing homelessness for the first time often means they don’t know how to reach out for help or where they can find help. Addition- ally, they are more apt to keep their unstable living conditions a secret. The NAEH reports these unique character- istics of students who find themselves in vulnerable living conditions after their college career is underway: • They often have saved some money for college. • They often receive scholarships or financial aid but cannot make ends meet with their living expenses. • They may be cut off from their family’s financial support, either by death, change in economic status, or disagreement. • These students commonly face unfortunate events that disrupt stable, year-round housing.  WWW.CITYGATENETWORK.ORG MAY/JUNE 2019 35  Is student homelessness a growing segment among your clients? How do you identify the problem if there is one?  How are restrictions for services (e.g. service hours, location, rules at the shelter) helping or hindering the full­time student population specifically?  At what point is it appropriate to advise homeless students to leave school and seek stability through full­time employment? Consider