Homelessness becomes crisis among students
Housing insecurity grows along with costs and stress
Three years ago, Kyshawna Johnson, 23, had a lot more than homework on her mind as she pursued an associate’s degree at Citrus College in Glendora, California. She also worried constantly about where to park overnight, since she was living in her car.
“That journey was a little traumatic for me,” says Johnson, who lived in her 2014 Chrysler 200 from September 2016 until the following March. “It affected my grades a lot. It affected my mental health. It affected my emotional stability. I was having different doubts about my future.”
Johnson’s plight is more common than many may realize.
A survey of nearly 86,000 students taken last fall by The Hope Center for College, Community and Justice found that homelessness affected 18% of respondents attending two-year colleges, and 14% of those attending four-year institutions. The number who said they had experienced housing insecurity, such as difficulty paying rent, was much higher, at 60%, among those attending two-year schools, and at 48% for those enrolled in four-year institutions.
“These are people who might not be on the street at this point but they do not have a fixed and regular place to sleep, and that creates stress that interferes with education,” says Sara Goldrick-Rab, founding director of the Hope Center, which focuses on research, activism and student support to improve access to higher education. “If they are temporarily staying with a relative or couch surfing with a friend, that is also homelessness.”
A combination of factors, including rising tuition, financial aid packages that fail to keep up with the costs of food, gas and child care, and an overall lack of affordable housing have fueled the homelessness crisis among college students.
“The conditions that create these problems do tend to be worse now than 10 to 15 years ago,’’ says Goldrick-Rab, who adds that college students can’t
“(Students) might not be on the street ... but they do not have a fixed and regular place to sleep, and that creates stress that interferes with education.” Sara Goldrick-Rab, the Hope Center
necessarily tap the safety nets available to younger children or adults who are not in school.
Public housing authorities, for instance, can prioritize to whom they rent when spaces are short, Goldrick-Rab says, and full-time college students often are pushed to the bottom.
Now a growing number of community organizations, colleges and lawmakers are trying to address the homelessness that belies the idyllic image many have of students bonding with roommates in campus dorms and worrying about little more than what fraternity or sorority to pledge.
“Everybody thinks what we saw on ‘Felicity’ or ‘A Different World’ is still what college is like,” says GoldrickRab, who notes that only 13 out of 100 American undergraduates live in student housing. People “also believe that every student has a parent who is paying for them. That is vanishingly rare right now. Most parents are barely making ends meet on their own.’’
The California Assembly has passed a bill that would require every community college in the state to provide a safe parking lot where homeless
students can sleep in their cars overnight. Massachusetts launched a pilot project this year that enables students at four community colleges to live in campus housing at nearby four-year universities.
Tacoma Community College in Washington has partnered with the Tacoma Housing Authority to provide 150 vouchers to help pay the rent for students in need.
And Jovenes, a program based in southeast Los Angeles County, helps out homeless students by paying their rent and providing a few apartments that they can share.
“There is financial aid and scholarships that make college very affordable itself,” says Eric Hubbard, Jovenes’ director of development. “But if we’re not focusing on all that students are dealing with to stay housed and stay fed, then we’re not setting them up to succeed.”
Jovenes focuses on students attending three local community colleges, East L.A., Rio Hondo and Cerritos. The organization’s “Rapid Rehousing” initiative helps pay the rent for students Iwith the goal that within a year, he or she will have the income or savings to cover the payments themselves.
The group has begun leasing apartments that can house one to four students and is looking for local homeowners who can provide a spare room to students for up to six months while they search for longer-term housing.
In the last three years, the organization has helped 55 students to find housing, Hubbard says, and 79% of those it has helped with rent payments remained enrolled in college, outpacing the overall statewide community college retention rate of 70%.
Problem has gotten worse
Along with higher costs and shortages of housing, another factor is that students may be reluctant to share their struggles and seek help.
Matthew Bodo, 21, was homeless for nearly two years while attending Foothill College in the Northern California community of Los Altos Hills. He worked 14 hours a day as a valet for Tesla but couldn’t meet the requirement by many landlords that his monthly income total three times the monthly rent.
“I was completely and totally embarrassed by it at first,” Bodo says. “At the time, I strongly disagreed with calling myself homeless because I thought a car could be considered a home, but now I see it as one and the same.”
Finally, a friend asked Bodo if he was homeless after she noticed that his car was filled with blankets, books and other personal belongings. She referred him to a campus program that became a lifeline.
Bodo, who became vice president of the student senate and is now living rent-free in the home of a professor, has become an activist. He is helping to convene a summit at Foothill on June 14.
“There’s such a stigma against homelessness,” says Bodo, who is headed to UCLA in the fall to study linguistics and psychology. He will receive $25,000 in aid that covers housing, meals and tuition. “People think of somebody on the side of the road talking to themselves rather than a student just trying to ... get an education.”
Searching for a safe place to sleep
In California, $15 million in ongoing funds has been proposed in the state budget to help meet basic student needs, including food and housing insecurity, for those attending the schools that are part of the University of California system. One time funds of $15 million have also been proposed for the Cal State university system which has 23 campuses. Community colleges, however, would not be included in that funding.
Now, a proposal that would open community college parking lots to students living in their cars is headed to the state Senate after passing the Assembly last month. “I’ve been upfront from day one that this is a short-term, band-aid solution to the crisis we have,” says Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, the bill’s sponsor.
Still, of the nearly 399,000 community college students in the state who experienced some period of homelessness in the previous year, 80,000, or 20%, of them slept in their cars, Berman says.
“The reality is it’s going to take billions of dollars and many years before we develop the housing necessary to house everybody in California,” he says. “I can’t look these students in the face and say I refuse to consider a short-term solution because I was working on the long-term solution that will help you in five years.”
At least one California school has rolled out such a program. West Valley College in Saratoga joined this year with an organization of local houses of worship to begin a “Safe park’’ initiative.
A different lot is available every month for homeless students, as well as other members of the community who are sleeping in their cars. Volunteers are on hand to sign people in and help if an emergency arises. When West Valley’s lot is the one in use, the school also serves meals every Friday night.
“Given the cost of rentals ... we’re seeing an uptick in the needs of students we are serving that exceeds what their Pell grants and jobs can pay for, says Bradley Davis, West Valley College’s president, who adds that roughly 300 homeless students attend his school. “We’re going to do this every month, every year, that there’s a need.’’
Better times ahead
Johnson, of Citrus College, lived with her grandmother when she was a teenager, but when her grandmother no longer received funds from the foster care system for keeping her, Johnson was told she had to leave. She then briefly lived with an aunt and uncle but had to move out when their landlord said she couldn’t stay.
Her $10-an-hour wages working three days a week weren’t enough to cover rent, and so Johnson ended up living in her car. She initially parked near a Starbucks so she could tap into the WiFi and do her homework. But inevitably the police would arrive to clear out the lot and chase her away.
She had to ask friends if she could shower at their homes before she found a youth drop-in center where she could bathe and wash her clothes.
“I thought it was embarrassing because I didn’t know the reaction I would get,’ she says.
But finally, “I decided to put my pride aside because I saw how deep of a hole I was in.”
A resource center she visited directed Johnson to Jovenes. One of the organization’s donors is covering the rent for an apartment where Johnson now lives.
“When I got into housing March 3, 2017, my life took a turn for the better,” she says. “I found my drive again. I saw that I was resilient, that I was still a gogetter. I didn’t let homelessness stop me . ... because I could have. I could have walked away from school.”
Now instead of walking away, she’s moving forward. She graduates from Citrus in June and has gotten a full scholarship to attend Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“Housing is included,” she says.