As another school year begins, data shows that homelessness remains a major issue for students in Chicago’s public education system — particularly in wards with predominantly African American populations. This data has prompted several aldermen with the highest numbers of homeless students in their wards to urge Mayor Lori Lightfoot to support a dedicated funding stream to combat the problem. The top 10 city wards with the highest numbers of homeless students, all on the South Side and West Side, have schools attended by 8,250 homeless students, or 50% of all the identified homeless students citywide. The homeless student population in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is disproportionately African-American: 81.2% of homeless students were black, 15.6% Latinx, 1.7% white, and 1.5% other ethnicities in 2018-19. Among the whole student body, only 36.6% of students were African-American. | 
