The McKinney-Vento Assistance Act defines homeless children and youth as individuals who:
- Lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence
- Share housing of other people due to loss of housing, crisis or economic hardship
- Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or campgrounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations
- Living in emergency, transitional shelters, or domestic violence shelters
- Living in cars, parks, public spaces, substandard housing, bus or train stations
- Having a nighttime residence that is public or a private place not designed for ordinarily use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings
- Are awaiting foster care placement
- Are migratory children who qualify as homeless
- Unaccompanied youth and runaways (defined as a youth not in physical custody of a parent or guardian)
- Abandoned in hospitals