By
Jocelyn Wiener - Bee Staff Writer
Nearly 5,000 schoolchildren in Sacramento County, and about 95,000 across the state, were homeless during some part of the 2005-2006 school year, according to preliminary data released Monday by the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.
Placer County schools documented 586 homeless children during that time; Yolo County documented 325; and El Dorado County documented 551 -- more than half of them in the Lake Tahoe Unified school district.
The data likely represent a "severe undercount" of the total number of homeless children in California, said Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, chairman of the Transportation and Housing Committee that requested the data.
The numbers do not include children under age 5, children who are not enrolled in public school or children of whom districts are simply unaware.
"I was shocked by it," Lowenthal said. "I just want it out. I think this is just overwhelming. ... You can't have children without a home."
Karen Lintf, an analyst with the state Department of Education, said the number will almost certainly increase before the state submits its yearly report to the federal government in the next few months.
"This number, I would dare to say, probably isn't true," she said. "It's probably going to be higher than this."
Finalized data are still trickling in from some districts, she said. By comparison, during the 2004-2005 school year, schools identified nearly 150,000 homeless children and youth.
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