CINCINNATI — More than 300 people have slept this year in a parking lot run by Cincinnati Public Schools, the first school district in the nation to own and operate a place where families experiencing homelessness can spend the night safely in their cars.
The district’s Safe Sleep Lot opened April 30 at William Howard Taft Elementary School and is run through Project Connect, the district program that supports students experiencing homelessness under the federal McKinney-Vento Act. The need is large: state education data show nearly 8 percent of the district’s students — about 2,650 children — experienced homelessness during the 2025-26 school year, up from about 2,000 in 2021-22.
District staff say the idea grew out of a problem they kept hearing from parents. Families sleeping in cars often had nowhere safe or legal to park overnight, moved from place to place during the night, and sometimes were asked by police to move along. Some parents told staff they stayed awake watching over their children, and two parents in a single week said they had lost jobs after falling asleep from exhaustion.
The lot has 12 spaces and is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., typically hosting three to eight families a night. Families are referred to the program and complete an intake appointment; each family receives supplies including pillows, towels, and blankets, children can pick out a stuffed animal, and vehicles get a parking pass with a unique code that security scans on arrival.
A grant-funded modular unit at the site gives families a kitchen area, showers, and bathrooms, along with frozen meals, snacks, breakfast items, and hygiene supplies, and a local nonprofit partner provides laundry service. The lot also offers security, a library, and Wi-Fi, with a Wednesday-night tutoring program planned, and a pergola is planned so families have somewhere to sit outside their vehicles.
Spending a night in the lot also speeds up everything that comes next. A family that sleeps there is verified for housing assistance within 24 hours and placed on the shelter waiting list, a step that can otherwise take far longer for families moving around at night. Project Connect can then arrange a short hotel stay — four to six nights for most families, and up to two weeks for families with CareSource coverage — while shelter placement, which typically takes one to two months, is pending. There is no limit on how many nights a family can return to the lot.
The lot operates from March through November, with Christ Church Cathedral set to host families during the winter months. District staff say some children who first came to the lot have since enrolled at Taft Elementary itself, and that attendance improves as families reach more stable housing. Project Connect’s manager says she hopes to turn the program into a blueprint that other school districts can copy.