San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
HOPE FOR STUDENT HOUSING
State grants $2.24 million to 5 community college districts in S.D. County to explore adding affordable housing
Without a place to sleep and shower, Southwestern College student Jonathan Renteria decided last year it was best to change his major.
“I came here for the school’s medical laboratory technician program, but I couldn’t go down that path,” he said. “It’s not because of performance; I’m a 4.0 student. I just can’t do my clinicals out of my car.”
Renteria, now majoring in design technology, lost his two prep cooking jobs at the start of the pandemic. He used stimulus dollars and other means to survive, but by the 2021 fall semester, he found himself homeless.
From August to September, school was home during the day and his Toyota Camry was a refuge at night for him and his dog, Appa. He used his cellphone to complete his homework.
“I met a lot of homeless students even though they didn’t look like it,” he said. “They knew I was, too.
There was no need to explain; it was just like code.”
Renteria was lucky. He now lives at an El Cajon home where he works as a caretaker. His experience is not unique.
The Southwestern Community College District in the South Bay and four other districts in San Diego County are now looking at ways to solve one of California’s most pressing issues affecting students like Renteria: affordable housing.
Only 11 of the state’s 116 community colleges offer student housing, according to the state chancellor’s office. There are none in San Diego County. But that could change.
Last month, the California Department of Finance awarded the county’s five community college districts — Grossmont ($310,000), Miracosta ($150,000), Palomar ($820,000), San Diego ($344,000) and Southwestern ($618,000) — $2.24 million in planning grants to explore the feasibility of building
student housing.
The Higher Education Student Housing Grant program stems from Senate Bill 169, which was signed into law in September and provides $500 million in one-time grants for colleges and universities to plan for or construct student housing. As part of the program, the state Finance Department has recommended several construction projects for the Legislature to consider later this year. The recommendations include some from the University of California San Diego, and a joint effort between San Diego State University and Imperial Valley College.
An unmet need
Southwestern College — with four campuses in Chula Vista, Otay Mesa, National City and San Ysidro — has approximately 28,000 students. In a February 2020 survey by the Community College Equity Assessment Laboratory, more than half of 500 local students who participated said their housing was unstable. About 100 said they rotated between the homes of friends and families, while others slept in cars, closets, at a campus or outdoors.
One in 5 students at San Diego Community College District, which has four colleges, lack housing, said Carlos Cortez, chancellor of the SDCCD.
Nationwide, 3 in 5 college students faced difficulties in accessing food and shelter in 2020, according to a March report by Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice.
Even with federal stimulus funding earmarked for higher education, “community colleges received significantly less support than four-year colleges, and students who were claimed as dependents were ineligible for CARES stimulus checks, even if they earned income and filed a tax return,” the report said.
“All higher education has been impacted (by the pandemic), but none of them as drastically as us (community colleges) because we serve the most vulnerable student populations,” said Cortez.
Abril, a Southwestern student and single mother who declined to share her last name, was nearly homeless last year. The college connected her with a nonprofit that helped her and her son find an apartment, but she worries other students might not be so lucky.
“I think it’s the right direction for community colleges to seek student housing because there’s a lot that need the help and school is the only place they know,” she said. “Community colleges are the only way out for many low-income people.”
What they want to build
San Diego City College, for example, plans to use the state grant to repurpose its former Child Development Center located downtown into a high-rise building that would offer rooms for more than 600 students. The project could cost about $130 million, according to the district.
Other projects still needing funding include efforts to bring 350 beds for foster youths to its Mountain View Educational Cultural Complex, as well as build housing for low-income employees.
Miracosta College officials said they will use the funding to identify a suitable site based on student needs and available commercial space, a task they estimate will take between four to six months.
“Housing insecurity impacts many of our students and with the increasing cost of living in San Diego County, housing is becoming ever more challenging for current and future college students,” officials said in an emailed statement Thursday. “The funds Miracosta College received are instrumental as we begin to identify our community partners — in the municipalities, private, and non-profits sectors — and start the feasibility study.”
Like other colleges, Palomar helps students access food, child care services and places to shower on campus. Their grant, they said, will help them research the possibility of offering more than that.
“We are very much aware that affordable housing is a challenge for our students and impacts their success as they pursue their educational path. This planning grant will provide Palomar College with the opportunity to examine and begin a planning phase for potential low-income affordable, safe and accessible student housing,” said President Star Rivera-lacey.
Southwestern College wants to build housing on or near its four campuses, according to its 2018 Facilities Master Plan.
“There’s a lot of different ways that you can arrange housing that we’re considering,” said Kelly Hall, Southwestern’s vice president for business and financial affairs. “It’s not just the traditional, two-bunk bed dorm room because we also have single parents and families, as well as having child care, food services, all of that.”
At its National City campus on National City Boulevard, the college is proposing to secure and renovate two nearby parcels — one owned by the city and the other formerly a bar. The city has expressed support in collaborating with Southwestern on the housing project, which is in the early design stages. The college estimates it could cost about $96 million.
Ideas in Chula Vista include new construction on a collegeowned property located across the street from the campus on Otay Lakes Road, estimated at $43 million. At San Ysidro, there is a proposal to turn a parking lot near its campus into housing and parking for $97 million, and at Otay Mesa, the college is thinking about building housing at a property it owns on Airway Road for the same estimated cost.
Its $618,000 state grant will help Southwestern determine how many student beds and wraparound services are feasible, Hall said.
The challenges ahead
Colleges don’t have enough money to build student housing on their own and grant programs are competitive as dozens of multimillion-dollar projects are being proposed.
“The bottom line is that we’re not in the business of housing; we’re in the business of teaching and learning. We’re not historically built as residential colleges,” Cortez said.
SDCCD has real estate across its four colleges to build hundreds of units, which can help the county reach its state-mandated goal of 108,000 new homes by 2029, but they “just don’t have the dollars to do it,” Cortez added.
It’s going to take partnerships with government, developers and housing organizations to offset funding costs and bring more housing, college officials said.
With local and state government agencies preparing their annual budgets, “we want to make sure that we call out the need for them to set aside funding specifically to work with the community colleges,” Cortez said.
Hall said the long-term viability of the projects must also be considered.
“These projects need to be able to sustain themselves. If we’re offering rents that are well below market rate, we must figure out how that can happen,” she said, adding that some ideas include partnerships with public companies who can take advantage of tax incentives or set aside units at market rates.
Ideally, the colleges said, they would like to have student housing available sometime within the next five years.