As a young child, Kimberly Kritzer loved to learn. She was the type of student to sit at the front of the classroom and wasn’t shy to raise her hand.
“When I was in early elementary school, I loved school,” Kritzer said. “I asked all the questions. I was so engaged.”
But when her father lost his job and she became homeless at age 12, school and learning were no longer a priority.
“You're trying to figure out where are we living, where are we sleeping and then also what about my math homework and do I need to get back to that essay I was supposed to write,” Kritzer said. “It's just all so confusing that you really put school on the back burner and you're really just focused on your basic needs.”
Krizter is far from the only child that’s experienced homelessness as a student growing up in San Diego County.
A recent study from UCLA shows that San Diego County has the fourth highest count of homeless students across all California counties. And San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) has the second highest out of every district in the state.
That’s inline with the growing statewide trend of student homelessness. The UCLA study used publicly available data from the California Department of Education.
The number of students experiencing homelessness in San Diego County increased from 20,651 during the 2018-2019 school year to 24,739 during the 2024-2025 school year, according to the study.
Researchers found that 5% of students in San Diego County and 8.4% of students in SDUSD were experiencing homelessness during the 2024-25 school year.
SDUSD’s Homeless/Foster Liaison Kristy Drake said they typically see about 7,500-8,000 students dealing with housing instability in a given year.
“One student that's experiencing homelessness is too many,” Drake said. “But 8,000 is a large number and 8% is a large percentage of kids to be housing unstable, even if it's not the largest.”
Drake said the definition of a student experiencing homelessness includes those who lack a fixed residence. She said families “doubling up” with other families to share rent makes up the largest portion of children experiencing homelessness in the district.
And Drake said their biggest concern with this population is attendance.
“If you're living, for example, outdoors or in a car or in substandard housing, you know, you're sick more often, so you're missing more school,” she said. “So chronic absenteeism and homelessness go hand-in-hand.”
San Diego State University Professor Lianne Urada is an expert in homelessness. She said many people are just moments away from being homeless.
Urada said children experiencing homelessness oftentimes have to jump through more hoops just to get to school. From taking multiple buses to not having enough money for food.
“It must be really hard to concentrate on school,” Urada said. “How can someone succeed academically if they don't have a place to live, right?”
Drake said a student experiencing homelessness who does not graduate from high school is 346% more likely to become a homeless adult.
The UCLA study found that the number of students experiencing homelessness increased by more than 30,000 across California during the time frame they looked at.
Kritzer completed online school and attended San Diego City College for two years, before moving on to SDSU where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“The second my housing needs were met and I was enrolled in school, everything went right back to it where I just could fully focus on my school, my grades,” she said. “I was able to graduate San Diego State with a 4.0, and in high school when we were experiencing homelessness, I had a 2.1 GPA.”
Kritzer got her master’s degree in social work. She hopes to change the narrative around families experiencing homelessness.
“It can happen to your closest friend, your family, your relative,” she said.
