Statement for the Hearing Record U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Work & Welfare
“The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program: Early Support, Lifelong Impact”
Hearing held June 25, 2026
SchoolHouse Connection is a national organization working to overcome homelessness through early care and education, from prenatal to postsecondary. We work to ensure that children and youth experiencing homelessness have full access to quality learning, birth through higher education, so they will never be homeless as adults, and the next generation will never be homeless. We submit this statement to commend the Subcommittee for its bipartisan examination of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program, to support the timely reauthorization of MIECHV before its expiration at the end of fiscal year 2027, and to urge the Committee to include a specific, explicit focus on infants, toddlers, and families experiencing homelessness in the next reauthorization. These comments are endorsed by Housing Is and ZERO TO THREE.
The June 25 hearing made a powerful case for MIECHV’s evidence-based, accountable approach to strengthening families. It also demonstrated through the testimony of the witnesses themselves how deeply homelessness is woven into the lives of the families MIECHV serves, and how uniquely capable home visiting is of reaching them. Modest, targeted amendments in the next reauthorization would help ensure that this proven program more consistently reaches the youngest and most vulnerable children in America: those without a home.
Homelessness among infants, toddlers, and expectant parents is widespread, harmful, and largely hidden.
Nearly 700,000 children under age six experience homelessness in the United States, and nearly 70,000 babies are born each year to parents who experienced homelessness during pregnancy — the very window in which MIECHV enrollment begins.[1] Infancy is the age at which a person in the United States is most likely to experience homelessness; babies and toddlers are also the age group at highest risk of eviction; in total, 2.9 million children ages 0-18 are threatened with eviction each year.[2] Most of these families are invisible to traditional homeless assistance systems. Because family shelter capacity is severely limited, and because parents fear losing custody of their children, most families with young children stay temporarily with other people (“doubled-up”), or in motels – situations that are recognized as homelessness under federal early childhood and education law, but that keep families hidden from view, particularly in rural and suburban communities.[3]
Homelessness in infancy is associated with delays in language, literacy, and social-emotional development; the younger and longer a child experiences homelessness, the greater the cumulative toll on health and development, and the impacts persist even after families are stably housed.[4] The long-term trajectory is equally stark. School-age children who experience homelessness have among the lowest high school graduation rates of any student subgroup – 70.1 percent in the 2023-24 school year – and nearly half are chronically absent.[5] Youth without a high school diploma are 4.5 times more likely to experience homelessness as young adults, making early intervention and education among the most powerful homelessness prevention strategies that exist.[6]
Homelessness also creates practical barriers to the very programs designed to help. High mobility, lack of documentation, lack of transportation, and distrust of service systems keep families out of many early childhood programs: Among infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness, 90 percent are not served by any federal early childhood development program.[7] In short, the children who stand to benefit most from early support are the least likely to receive it, unless the support comes to them.
Home visiting is uniquely suited to reach families experiencing homelessness, and the evidence shows it works.
As Chairman Smith observed at the hearing, as important as the services MIECHV offers is the manner in which it delivers them: by meeting families where they live. For families without a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, that is the difference between being served and being unserved. Put plainly, home visiting does not require a home – families do not need to have a fixed address or their own transportation to receive services, which are two of the barriers that often keep families experiencing homelessness out of center-based programs. As Dr. Seanez testified, “families are not required to adapt to home visiting; home visiting adapts to each family.”
Rigorous research bears this out. An analysis of data from a larger randomized control trial of Healthy Families Massachusetts – a statewide program implementing a MIECHV-approved, evidence-based model – found that young mothers who participated in home visiting were significantly less likely to experience homelessness once their children reached preschool age than mothers who did not receive home visiting.[8] In other words, home visiting does not only mitigate the harm of homelessness; it helps prevent it.
Evidence from the field shows that families experiencing homelessness can be served successfully within evidence-based home visiting models. Start Early’s Home Visiting for Homeless Families (HVHF) project in Chicago adapted programs implementing the Healthy Families America and Parents as Teachers models – both MIECHV-approved – to remove barriers for families experiencing homelessness, including through partnerships with homeless service providers, specialized home visitors, shelter-based service delivery, and flexibility for highly mobile families. A formative evaluation by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago found that families experiencing homelessness were just as engaged in services as stably housed families, completing as many visits per month, of the same duration.[9] Children in participating homeless families were more likely to be screened for developmental delays – and more likely to have a result warranting follow-up – than their housed peers, confirming both the elevated need and home visiting’s power to catch delays early, when intervention is most effective and least costly. Mothers described trusting relationships with home visitors who provided parenting education, essential supplies, referrals, and emotional support through repeated moves and crises.
Home visiting’s impacts on housing status extend beyond MIECHV-funded programs, underscoring the strength of the model itself. In Michigan, a randomized controlled trial of enhanced services in the Medicaid-funded Maternal Infant Health Program – additional visit time, additional visits, and care coordination – found positive impacts on families’ self-reported social determinants of health, including their housing situations; the enhanced services have since been adopted statewide.[10] While MIECHV is not the only source of home visiting funding, it is the backbone of the field: as the witnesses testified, MIECHV’s evidence standards, benchmarks, coordinated intake, training, and data infrastructure raise the quality of home visiting across all funding streams. That is precisely why MIECHV reauthorization is the right vehicle to strengthen the field’s capacity to serve families experiencing homelessness.
The hearing record itself demonstrates the deep connection between home visiting and homelessness.
None of the five witnesses was invited to testify specifically about homelessness. Yet homelessness ran throughout the entire hearing because it is pervasive among the very risk factors MIECHV targets.
- Ms. Wilson testified that her family experienced homelessness during her childhood. Years later, as a working mother enrolled in Nurse-Family Partnership, she faced homelessness again: a career transition left her unable to afford rent with a toddler at home. Her nurse helped her access a short-term crisis fund that covered her rent for the critical month, allowing her to avoid eviction and complete the professional leap that led to her current career as a therapist. A trusted home visitor, already in the home, was positioned to act before a crisis became homelessness.
- Ms. Longoria described an East Texas mother of two who was staying in a room in her ex-mother-in-law’s home because she had nowhere else to go — a doubled-up living situation that constitutes homelessness under federal early childhood and education law. Her Parents as Teachers program identified her as a veteran, connected her to veteran services and housing, and made stability the first goal. She completed the program with her own home, a stable job, a driver’s license, and two kindergarten-ready children.
- Dr. Seanez testified that Navajo Nation home visitors connect families to housing support, and that about one-third of Navajo homes are deficient in plumbing and kitchen facilities — conditions that meet the federal definition of homelessness for children when housing is not fit for human habitation.
- Ms. Wilson’s testimony also detailed how Nurse-Family Partnership nurses “facilitate referrals for health care, behavioral health services, housing assistance, nutrition programs,” and other supports under MIECHV’s sixth benchmark area (coordination and referrals for community resources). Housing is already part of what home visitors do; it is simply not yet part of how the statute measures what they do.
Ms. Smith and Ms. West likewise testified that home visiting targets families facing poverty, the risk of homelessness, and child welfare involvement. The witnesses’ experiences mirror what SchoolHouse Connection documents nationally through our practical assistance work with home visiting and other early childhood programs, including our published case studies of successful practices, our national webinars featuring programs and researchers, and our training and technical assistance on identifying and serving families experiencing homelessness. We see that home visitors regularly serve families in shelters, motels, and doubled-up situations, and that those families are deeply engaged and grateful for the support – yet home visitors report needing more training, flexibility, and partnerships with homeless service providers to serve these families well.[11]
Programs that have made homelessness an intentional focus show what is possible within evidence-based home visiting. Start Early’s Home Visiting for Homeless Families project in Chicago operates three service-delivery models: traditional home visitors matched with a local homeless service provider; specialized home visitors whose entire caseloads are families experiencing homelessness; and home visitors hired by homeless service providers to deliver services on-site in family shelters. Participating programs committed to concrete flexibilities, such as continuing to serve families that move, reducing caseloads for specialized home visitors, using alternative communication strategies, and visiting at nontraditional locations. The results are instructive: a majority of the children enrolled were found to be doing as well developmentally as their housed peers. Program leaders’ chief lessons were the importance of identifying families without stigma – most participating families were doubled-up rather than in shelters – and of adjusting programmatic requirements so that programs are not unintentionally penalized for serving families with higher needs.[12]
Yet families experiencing homelessness remain underserved, and MIECHV lacks an explicit focus on them.
Despite home visiting’s demonstrated fit, only a small fraction of families experiencing homelessness receive services. SchoolHouse Connection collects and analyzes data on families experiencing homelessness served by home visiting programs, including some MIECHV-funded programs, in partnership with Healthy Families America, Parents as Teachers, the Michigan Maternal Infant Health Program, SafeCare, and the Bureau of Indian Education. In the 2022-2023 program year, these models reported serving 8,749 families with young children experiencing homelessness, approximately 1.29% of all children experiencing homelessness under age six.13 Participation rates for the 2023-2024 program year will be published in SchoolHouse Connection’s forthcoming data report on infant and toddler homelessness across 50 states. In addition, SchoolHouse Connection will publish a separate analysis looking exclusively at families experiencing homelessness served in MIECHV-funded programs in fall 2026.
In addition to limited MIECHV funding, several structural factors contribute to low homelessness participation rates. Unlike Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the MIECHV statute does not define homelessness, does not name children and families experiencing homelessness among its priority populations, does not include homelessness among the factors states must examine in their statewide needs assessments, and does not require data on the housing status of families served in alignment with the federal early childhood definition of homelessness. Performance measurement can also work against homeless families: the Chapin Hall evaluation found that local programs worried that serving highly mobile families would jeopardize their completion-rate and visit benchmarks, which is an unintended disincentive to serve the families who need home visiting most.[13]
Recommendations: A bipartisan opportunity in the next reauthorization.
SchoolHouse Connection is a partner in Thrive from the Start, a national campaign to prevent and solve infant and toddler homelessness. The campaign’s policy agenda, informed by successful cross-sector programs across the country, calls on policymakers to prioritize families experiencing homelessness in early childhood programs, including home visiting; to adopt a consistent definition of homelessness across federal programs; and to improve data collection and coordination.[14] The recommendations that follow advance those same principles within MIECHV. They are modest in scope and consistent with the bipartisan priorities expressed at the hearing: rigorous evidence and accountability, reaching underserved rural and hard-to-reach communities, alignment and coordination across early childhood programs, and helping the families at highest risk. They would align MIECHV with the bipartisan precedents Congress has already set in Head Start, child care, and education law.
- Align MIECHV’s definition of homelessness with those used in other federal early childhood programs. Adopt the same legal definition that is included in Head Start, the Child Care and Development Fund, and the education subtitle of the McKinney-Vento Act, which includes families staying with others or in motels due to lack of adequate alternatives. A consistent definition in the statute supports the coordination that witnesses praised, and ensures that a family identified as homeless by a school district liaison, Head Start program, or a federally-funded child care program is recognized the same way by home visiting programs.
- Include homelessness in the statewide needs assessment. Require states to identify communities with concentrations of children and families experiencing homelessness, alongside the existing risk factors, so that resources are targeted where need is greatest – the same data-driven targeting Ms. West described in Iowa.
- Add children and families experiencing homelessness to MIECHV’s priority populations. This prioritization would mirror what Congress has already enacted in Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and reflects the elevated risk profile documented in the research and in the witnesses’ own testimony.
- Align MIECHV data collection on homelessness with other federal early childhood programs. HRSA already requires MIECHV-funded programs to report on families’ housing status (Form 1, Table 11 of MIECHV performance reporting). However, the required form does not capture all of the living situations that constitute homelessness under federal early childhood and education law, such as staying with others or in motels, which risks mis-categorizing families and creates confusion for those completing data collection. To bring MIECHV in line with Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and public preschool programs, reauthorization should require states to collect and report the number of participating families experiencing homelessness consistent with the definition above. This change would extend the accountability framework that members of both parties praised at the hearing, and will allow Congress to evaluate how MIECHV’s investment reaches homeless families.
- Recognize homelessness in the benchmark areas. Amend the sixth benchmark area – “improvements in the coordination and referrals for other community resources and supports” – to expressly include shelter and housing, and make the corresponding change to participant outcome measures. Witnesses testified that home visitors already make housing referrals; the statute should measure and credit that work.
- Ensure performance measures do not penalize programs serving highly mobile families. Direct HHS to provide flexibility in visit-completion and retention measures for families experiencing homelessness, so that programs are not unintentionally discouraged from enrolling the families who benefit most.
Conclusion
MIECHV enjoys a durable bipartisan legacy thanks to the shared commitment both the Chairman and Ranking Member voiced at this hearing. Ranking Member Davis invoked Frederick Douglass: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” No children face steeper odds than babies and toddlers without a home – and no program is better designed to reach them than one that meets families where they live, wherever that may be. We urge the Committee to reauthorize MIECHV in a timely manner and to seize this opportunity to ensure that the program’s next chapter explicitly includes the youngest Americans experiencing homelessness. SchoolHouse Connection stands ready to assist the Committee with data, research, and the expertise of practitioners and parents nationwide.
Barbara Duffield, Executive Director, SchoolHouse Connection
[1]Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan and SchoolHouse Connection. (2026). Child and Youth Homelessness in the United States: Data Profiles: https://schoolhouseconnection.org/article/data-profiles; McGovern ME, Treglia D, Eliason EL, Spishak-Thomas A, Cantor JC. Homelessness and Maternal and Infant Health. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(11):e2442596. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.42596
[2]Gubits, D., Shinn, M., Wood, M., et al. (2016). Family Options Study: 3-Year Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research; Graetz, N., Gershenson, C., Hepburn, P., Porter, S.R., Sandler, D.H., & Desmond, M. (2023). A comprehensive demographic profile of the US evicted population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(41), e2305860120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305860120
[3] Institute for Children, Poverty & Homelessness. (2025, August). The Hidden Homeless: Families with Children in the U.S. (Fact Sheet). https://www.icph.org/reports/the-hidden-homeless-families-with-children-in-the-u-s/
[4]Sandel, M., et al. (2018); Perlman, S. & Fantuzzo, J. (2010); Horizons for Homeless Children & Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Children and Youth Services Review (2023)
[5]National Center for Homeless Education, Federal Data Summary, School Years 2021-22 to 2023-24; SchoolHouse Connection, Federal 2023-24 Homeless Student Data (2026).
[6]Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Missed Opportunities: Education Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America (2019), https://www.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/ChapinHall_VoYC_Education-Brief.pdf.
[7]SchoolHouse Connection, Infant and Toddler Homelessness Across 50 States: 2022-23 (April 2025).
[8]Stargel, L. E., Fauth, R. C., & Easterbrooks, M. A. (2018). Home visiting program impacts on reducing homelessness among young mothers. Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, 27(1), 89–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/10530789.2017.1396740
[9]Dworsky, A., Carreon, E., Griffin, A. M., & McDaniel, B. (2022). Home Visiting for Homeless Families project: Final evaluation report. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, https://www.chapinhall.org/research/hvhf-evaluation/.
[10]University of Michigan Youth Policy Lab, Healthy Moms Healthy Babies Pilot Project evaluation (randomized controlled trial of 59 Maternal Infant Health Program agencies), presented June 2, 2026. Following the pilot, Michigan Medicaid began reimbursing the enhanced services statewide on October 1, 2024.
[11]Dworsky, A., Carreon, E., Griffin, A. M., & McDaniel, B. (2022). Home visiting with families experiencing homelessness.Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. https://www.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/HVHF-Brief.pdf
[12]SchoolHouse Connection, Case Studies in Supporting Infants, Toddlers, and Expectant Parents Experiencing Homelessness (2024),https://schoolhouseconnection.org/article/case-studies-in-supporting-infants-toddlers-and-expectant-parents-experiencing-homelessness; see also Dworsky, A., Carreon, E., Griffin, A. M., & McDaniel, B. (2022). Home Visiting for Homeless Families project: Final evaluation report. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, https://www.chapinhall.org/research/hvhf-evaluation/.
13SchoolHouse Connection, Infant and Toddler Homelessness Across 50 States: 2022-23 (April 2025).
[13] Dworsky, A., Carreon, E., Griffin, A. M., & McDaniel, B. (2022). Home Visiting for Homeless Families project: Final evaluation report. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, https://www.chapinhall.org/research/hvhf-evaluation/.
[14] Thrive from the Start, A Policy Agenda for Solving Infant and Toddler Homelessness (2025), https://www.thrivefromthestart.org.