While family homelessness has decreased in D.C. over the last decade, it’s still a challenge: during the 2024-2025 school year, D.C. Public Schools reported 9,104 students were unhoused.
One reason why homelessness among D.C. youth is such a prevalent issue is that many live in poverty. According to DC Action, “approximately 21,000 District children lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line in 2023.” Many of these families have a hard time finding affordable childcare, which prevents them from working more and growing their incomes, according to a 2024 fact sheet from the First Five Years Fund. Unhoused families in D.C. and Maryland face numerous obstacles when accessing affordable childcare, including programs with age restrictions, strict shelter rules, lack of transportation, and lack of financial literacy and long-term support.
Many shelters don’t have on-site childcare and also don’t permit families to leave children alone or hire babysitters to come into the shelter, making outside childcare the only option. While D.C. provides financial support for homeless families in need of childcare, families and their advocates say the process can still be challenging.
Jessica Portillo, 31, who lived in a Maryland shelter from December 2024 to September 2025, said that during her time at the shelter, she struggled to find affordable childcare for her son, specifically due to his age and special needs.
“Most daycares are not accepting children of my son’s age or seem to have knowledge on how to deal with a child with autism,” Portillo said.
Most D.C. and many Maryland family shelters are apartment-style, where families have their own unit in a building filled with other families. While children have their space away from other individuals at the shelter, many shelters don’t allow parents to leave their children unattended for the safety of themselves and others at the shelter. This is true at city-funded shelters in D.C., according to a Department of Human Services spokesperson.
Jamila Larson, Rosa Wright, and Aisha Springer work at Playtime Project, a D.C. organization that holds after-school programs and summer and spring break camps for children experiencing family housing insecurity. They say for the families they work with in D.C. and Maryland, it can be difficult to hire babysitters in shelters due to facility rules, which sometimes say visitors are only allowed during certain hours and cannot go into individual units. One mother they helped was almost kicked out of a homeless shelter for paying another resident to watch her child so she could work, they said.
“Babysitting others’ kids is often against the rules, but she had applied for childcare assistance and was denied. This mom was forced to choose between her shelter and her job,” Larson, Wright, and Springer wrote in a joint statement via email.
In D.C. city-funded shelters, on-site babysitting is not allowed, a DHS spokesperson said, to protect privacy for other residents, who may not want strangers coming into the shelter.
During Portillo’s time at a Maryland shelter, she wasn’t allowed to leave her son with anyone, even if she knew they were a trusted adult.
“We couldn’t leave our children in the shelter alone; if you did, they threatened to call CPS. If you leave them with other people, you’ll get a write-up or get in trouble,” she said.
That leaves the option of outside childcare, which can be both expensive and logistically challenging.
In D.C., families entering short-term housing are automatically connected to applications for childcare subsidies, according to a DHS spokesperson, and Maryland has a similar program. But those who work with families said just applying for childcare can be a rigorous process, which discourages many parents from even trying.
“Childcare paperwork is an extensive process requiring technology that is often challenging for our families to stay on top of,” Larson, Wright, and Springer wrote.
They also said that although families can apply for vouchers to help them with their expenses, they don’t always cover the full cost.
While Portillo received a voucher in Maryland, she said she still couldn’t find affordable daycare centers and couldn’t use them for a personal caregiver. “I got accepted for vouchers. They said I could only use these vouchers for daycares on their systems and not babysitters,” she said.
Tamara Brooks, the parenting program manager of Community Family Life Services, CFLS — a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that provides social services to help adults, families, and women achieve permanent self-sufficiency — said another reason why many parents can’t find childcare is that most affordable childcare they could pay for with their vouchers isn’t local to many shelters. Larson, Wright, and Springer added that because many parents experiencing homelessness don’t own a car, finding affordable childcare families can get to is even harder.
Approximately 36% of households in the District reported having no vehicle. While there is a metro system, it is often unreliable for families who have a tight work schedule. Many D.C. shelters, such as The Brooks, also have strict curfew rules for their residents.
According to Larson, Wright, and Springer, families not living in shelters but staying with friends and family can also face their own challenges. They said some D.C. childcare centers require a set address, which families experiencing housing insecurity don’t have.
“They rarely know where they are going to live and where they are going to work, so it makes it impossible to find childcare until these foundational pieces of a puzzle are decided,” they wrote.
Despite these challenges, a lot of times parents don’t reach out for help because many struggle with mental health issues and are afraid of judgment, or that their children could be taken away.
“There was one parent we helped who was dealing with a mental health struggle. Instead of receiving the care and stability she needed, her housing was taken away. Too often, instead of offering understanding and support, the system punishes families when they’re at their most vulnerable,” Brooks said.
Instead, Brooks said, leaders, organizations, and individuals should express more empathy toward unhoused families, offering resources for low-income and unhoused parents, including affordable childcare.
“Empathy means creating the space and mindset to truly listen, accepting people where they are, and helping them, and you have to show up as a safe place,” Brooks said.
This article originally appeared in Street Sense’s Nov. 19, 2025 edition.
