Peninsula 360 Press [P360P]/Bay City News
College students in Silicon Valley have long gone hungry and slept in their cars, despite being one of the wealthiest places in the country. But many of this year's college students face even more obstacles because of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
While thousands of students line up to eat at San Jose State University's Spartan Food Pantry, a recent survey revealed that 41.5 percent of them experienced housing insecurity.
Lana Gomez, a representative of the student-run advocacy organization Student Homeless Alliance, said that during the pandemic, students sleeping in their cars have continued to look for safe places to park at night where they can rest before class the next day.
"It's just unimaginable how they can go through something like that and still be students," Gomez said.
In this region of stark contrasts, the enormous wealth of tech moguls is always on display: from gleaming Teslas on the highways to the median price of a $1.4 million home in San Jose. So are signs of deep poverty: sprawling homeless encampments and lines around the block for free meals at local recreation centers.
Things here were difficult for many students, even long before the pandemic hit.
Find a place to sleep in Silicon Valley
Saline Chambre was homeless for the first time during semester breaks, without a home to return to when the dorms closed. During a "brutal winter," she recalled sleeping in the rain and contracting pneumonia that took weeks to recover from.
During the summer, he would find beds in shelters or sneak into a school building. Other times, he stayed on campus benches or in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. library downtown, behind rows of towering stacks of books.
"I would find a corner, curl up and sleep there," he said.
Kenneth Mashinchi, a university spokesman, said SJSU Cares, which provides resources and services for students facing financial crisis, offers emergency assistance and on- and off-campus housing for students experiencing housing insecurity, as well as food resources and overnight parking.
Mashinchi said SJSU is dedicated to finding students a place to stay, rather than sleeping in a car, "because it gives students a safe and supportive option."
Still, the needs are great. A "basic needs survey" released by the university's SJSU Cares program last July found that at the beginning of the year more than 11 percent of students reported being homeless for at least one day. Students said they were looking for a couch to stay on or living out of cars. Others stayed temporarily in motels, hotels, shelters or outdoors.
Nearly 30 percent said they had "limited or uncertain access to safe, nutritious food" due to limited funds, often after exhausting financial aid and student loans. Those students skipped meals or ate less. More than a quarter of respondents had experienced "food insecurity" for at least three months.
An overwhelming 82 percent of students surveyed said that COVID-19 had "somewhat or very negatively" affected their mental health and general well-being. They had been laid off and suffered reduced hours. Nearly half said the decrease in income due to the pandemic threatened their housing. The report frames its findings by stating, "Our students are dealing with the trauma of this pandemic in addition to the demands of everyday life: balancing work, family and other personal responsibilities in addition to trying to succeed in their studies."
Meeting basic needs of the students
Last January, University President Mary Papazian called the student homelessness crisis "one of the most pressing issues of our time" as she launched housing programs totaling more than $3 million.
The funds, provided by the California State University Chancellor's Office, are being spent on basic student needs, mental health services and limited emergency housing. There are also plans in the works to build 800 to 1,200 below-market-value apartments for faculty, staff and some students.
Papazian recently announced that he will resign at the end of the year, following revelations that the university mishandled reports since 2009 that student athletes had been sexually assaulted by their coach.
Since opening in March 2019, the campus pantry has also provided critical service. According to the SJSU Cares website, there were more than 18,880 visits from SJSU students between March 2019 and January 2020. Requests to the food, housing and other basic needs assistance program increased from 189 during the 2018-19 school year to 624 requests for assistance at the end of the year.
Driven by long-suppressed needs, three years ago, a group of students marched on the university president's office, demanding emergency beds and parking spaces for students to sleep safely at night in their cars. SJSU is just miles from the gleaming campuses of Google, Facebook and Apple, but college students like Chandler and other transition-age youth often live nearby in extreme poverty.
Chandler, for example, has worked at the DSW shoe store, a local LGBTQ youth center, an amusement park, and as a babysitter. But working up to three jobs at once to pay the rent left her no time to study, in addition to her struggles to find a safe place to sleep at night. She ended up dropping out of college, where she was studying sociology.
San Jose State University sociology professor Scott Myers-Lipton acknowledged such difficulties and said homeless students have a hard time keeping up with academics when they have nowhere to sleep and not enough to eat.
"If our students are struggling with those issues, their grades and college graduation rates will suffer," he said. "Students plummet when their basic needs are not being met."
Resistance
Student Homeless Alliance wants the university to provide students with subsidized housing, grants for those facing homelessness, 10 garage parking spaces for students sleeping in cars and 12 permanent emergency beds on campus.
Under continued pressure, the university agreed to provide the dozen beds, but they are currently only available for this semester and so far the university has struggled to connect those in need with the pilot program.
University spokesman Mashinchi said only one student has used a bed during the program, but SJSU Cares has continued to offer "comfortable and safe housing on and off campus for students experiencing housing insecurity," resources that include full bathrooms, food resources and overnight accommodations. parking passes. Student Homeless Alliance members are concerned that the program is not publicized enough.
Student homelessness is not unique to urban students in San Jose. Fifteen miles north on Interstate 280, students at Foothill College in affluent Los Altos Hills have also struggled during the pandemic.
A Foothill-De Anza Community College District survey found that more than 5 percent of 1,500 respondents were "housing insecure," 2.0 percent lived in an unsafe environment, and more than 3.0 percent were homeless.
Simon Pennington, a spokesman for Foothill College, said the homeless students include young people who have suffered abuse and neglect at home, and those rejected because they came out to their parents as LGBTQ.
Matthew Brodo, 23, said that after repeated fights with his father, he was kicked out of his house for weeks. After a particularly bad fight when he was 18, his dad told him to pack up his stuff and not come back. Brodo said he took some clothes and a toothbrush and started living in his car.
"All I could eat was canned food or food in a package, and sometimes I would even struggle to pay for that," she said. "I would prioritize paying for classes and textbooks over food."
Now, five years later, Brodo, who transferred from Foothill College to UCLA, is studying to become a social worker.
Chandler plans to re-enroll at San Jose State next year.
However, with students vaccinated on campus now, SJSU Cares reports that things will not simply fall back into a pre-pandemic place with respect to employment, housing and nutrition. "For those who were in deficit areas before, the gap may be larger now," the authors report.
Pennington said more needs to be done for struggling students, but he continues to be amazed by their perseverance.
"Community college students are resilient," he said. "They are hard workers and we just need to give them a little more help. In such a wealthy area, we should be ashamed that there are people living in adverse conditions."
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