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W<\/span>hen Edgar Rosales Jr uses the word \u201chome\u201d he isn\u2019t referring to the house he plans to buy after becoming a nurse or getting a job in public health. Rather, the second-year student at Long Beach City college is talking about the parking lot he slept in every night for more than a year.<\/p>\n With Oprah-esque enthusiasm, Rosales calls the other students who use LBCC\u2019s Safe Parking Program his \u201croommates\u201d or \u201cneighbors\u201d.<\/p>\n Between 8 and 1030pm, those neighbors drive on to the lot, where staff park during the day. Nearby showers open at 6am. Sleeping in a car may not sound like a step up, but for Rosales \u2013 who dropped out of a Compton high school more than 20 years ago to become a truck driver \u2013 being handed a key fob to a bathroom stocked with toilet paper and hand soap was life-altering. He kept the plastic tab on his key ring, even though he was supposed to place it in a drop box each morning, because the sight of it brought comfort; the sense of it between his fingers, hard and slick, felt like peace.<\/p>\n When Rosales and his son\u2019s mother called it off again in the fall of 2024, just after he\u2019d finished a GED program and enrolled at LBCC, he stayed with his brother for a week or so. But he didn\u2019t want to be a burden. So one day after work at the trucking company \u2013 he\u2019d gone part-time since enrolling, though he would still regularly clock 40 hours a week \u2013 he circled the block in his beat-up sedan and parked on the side of the road, near some RVs and an encampment.<\/p>\n The scariest part of sleeping in his car was the noises, Rosales said: \u201cI heard a dog barking or I heard somebody running around or you see cop lights going down the street, you see people looking in your car.\u201d He couldn\u2019t sleep, let alone focus. Without the ability to bathe regularly, he began to avoid people to spare them the smell. The car became his sanctuary, he said, but also, a prison: \u201cIt starts messing with your mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n First, Rosales dropped a class. A few weeks later, he told his LBCC peer navigator he couldn\u2019t do it any more and needed to withdraw. Instead, she helped Rosales sign up for the college\u2019s Safe Parking Program, and everything flipped on its head.<\/p>\n With the LBCC lot\u2019s outlets and wifi, the back seat of his car morphed into a study carrel. Campus security was there to watch over him, not threaten him like the police had, telling him to move along or issuing a citation that cost him a day\u2019s pay. For the first time in a month, Rosales said, \u201cI could just sleep with my eyes closed the whole night.\u201d<\/p>\n Forty-eight per cent of college students in the US experience housing insecurity, meaning \u201cchallenges that prevent them from having a safe, affordable, and consistent place to live\u201d, suggests the most recent Student Basic Needs Survey Report from the Hope Center at Temple University. Fourteen per cent of the nearly 75,000 students surveyed experienced homelessness, the most severe form of housing insecurity.<\/p>\n That\u2019s partly because of a national housing supply shortage and the fact that eligibility rules for affordable housing programs often exclude students; and it\u2019s partly because the cost of college has risen nationwide as government investment in higher education and the purchasing power of financial aid have fallen over the decades. The second Trump administration\u2019s threatened and actual changes to Pell Grants, the largest federal student aid program, haven\u2019t helped, nor have its cuts to the social safety net generally and erosion of laws meant to ensure equitable access to housing.<\/p>\n For years, colleges have primarily referred homeless students to shelters, non-profits and other external organizations, but \u201cthere\u2019s kind of a shift that\u2019s happening\u201d, said Jillian Sitjar, director of higher education for the non-profit SchoolHouse Connection. \u201cInstitutions are starting to look internally, being like, \u2018OK, we need to do more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Rosales Jr showing the keys to his new home.<\/span> Photograph: James Bernal for The Hechinger Report<\/p>\n LBCC\u2019s Safe Parking Program is one of the most visible of a new crop of programs addressing student housing insecurity by giving students unorthodox places to sleep: cars, hotels, napping pods, homes of alumni and even an assisted living facility.<\/p>\n What sets these stopgap efforts apart from longer-term strategies \u2013 such as initiatives to reduce rents, build housing (including out of shipping containers), rapidly rehouse students, cover housing gaps (like summer and holidays) and provide students with more financial aid \u2013 is that they are designed to be flawed. College administrators know full well that Band-Aid programs are insufficient, that they ae catching blood rather than addressing the source of the bleeding. And yet, while long-term projects are under way, what\u2019s woefully inadequate can be quite a bit better than nothing.<\/p>\n An oversize sink sure was for Mike Mu\u00f1oz. Decades before becoming the president of LBCC, Mu\u00f1oz was a community college student who worked at a portrait studio in a mall. After coming out as gay, he couldn\u2019t go home, and then the family lost their house to foreclosure so \u201cthere wasn\u2019t a home to go back to\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Feeling hopeless, Mu\u00f1oz would park overnight near the mall and deal with the exact same stressors Rosales would endure years later. In the morning, he would take a sponge bath in the oversize sink the studio used to develop film. His biggest concern, after survival, he said, was keeping anyone from finding out about his homelessness.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1oz wants students using the Safe Parking Program to feel safe bringing their full selves to college, in a way he didn\u2019t until transferring to a four-year school and moving into student housing. \u201cThe mental load that I was carrying, I was able to set that down,\u201d he said, \u201cand I was able to then really focus that energy\u201d on classes, on who he wanted to be.<\/p>\n Indeed, research suggests that asking a student to thrive in college without a reliable place to sleep is no more reasonable than asking them to ace a test without access to books or lectures. Multiple studies have found that housing insecurity is associated with significantly lower grades and wellbeing. Lacking a stable housing arrangement has also been shown to negatively affect class attendance, full-time enrollment and the odds of getting a degree.<\/p>\n When a pandemic-era survey revealed at least 70 LBCC students living in their cars, Mu\u00f1oz asked the college\u2019s board to support him in implementing a safe parking program. They agreed something had to be done, but legal liability concerned some LBCC staff, as did the risk of sending a message that it\u2019s OK for students to have to sleep in cars. After Mu\u00f1oz pressed, addressing those concerns and \u201cthe sky is falling kind of stuff\u201d \u2013 visions of drugs, sex, trash, urine \u2013 the school piloted a program with 13 students and a startup budget of $200,000 from pandemic relief funds in 2021.<\/p>\n That money covered private overnight security and paid for the non-profit Safe Parking LA to train LBCC staff and help develop an application, liability waiver and more. The school\u2019s facilities team installed security cameras and scheduled more cleaning and the extra opening of the lot\u2019s gates.<\/p>\n After the federal tap ran dry post-pandemic, the school moved the program from its original location to the lot Rosales would call home, which has a clear line of sight from the campus security office. One extra security position replaced the private company. In other words, Mu\u00f1oz made it work.<\/p>\n Other schools have swung different hammers at the same nail. Some colleges and universities with dorms maintain \u201cin-and-out rooms\u201d, beds set aside for short-term, emergency use. Others offer year-round housing for specific student populations, like former foster youth.<\/p>\n Some community colleges, which mostly don\u2019t have dorms that allow for these options, have teamed up with four-year institutions to house students at a discounted rate or contracted directly with hotels. Airbnb also has a program to house students short term.<\/p>\n Some students at colleges in Minnesota even live in a nursing home in exchange for a very low monthly rent and volunteering to help senior citizens do things like troubleshoot tech and go shopping. At Howard Community college in Maryland, they curl into sleeping pods during the day.<\/p>\n No one, though, believes Band-Aids are really the answer.<\/p>\n Rosales has leg issues and a bad back. \u201cI\u2019m a big guy,\u201d he said as he folded himself into the back seat of his car in an origami-like series of steps in early September. The wifi on the lot is spotty, one bathroom for more than a dozen people often means a line, there\u2019s no fridge or microwave, and Safe Parking Program users aren\u2019t able to sleep in or get to bed early.<\/p>\n Yet despite its limitations, the program let Rosales \u201cbreathe, relax, continue on\u201d, he said. And the lot offered a chance to build community. \u201cTrust me, we\u2019ll help you,\u201d Rosales would say to new arrivals. And they do often require assistance. Even when campus resources exist, two-thirds of students in need lack awareness about available supports, Hope Center researchers concluded.<\/p>\n Stigma is part of the problem. \u201cWe\u2019re scared that we\u2019re going to get judged or someone\u2019s going to give us pity,\u201d said Rosales, \u201clike, \u2018Oh, there goes the homeless one.\u2019\u201d He didn\u2019t even tell his family about his homelessness. In fact, Rosales\u2019s peer navigator was the first to know \u2013 and he only had one of those because of LBCC\u2019s targeted outreach.<\/p>\n Recently, Rosales organized a free breakfast to connect his \u201croommates and neighbors\u201d with campus resources and each other. He felt terrible that he still couldn\u2019t do much for the son he had barely seen since moving out, especially after being laid off by the trucking company on Christmas Eve. But now he could add value to someone.<\/p>\n <\/span>Edgar Rosales Jr doing homework in the backseat of his car at Long Beach City college.<\/span> Photograph: James Bernal for The Hechinger Report<\/p>\n And he felt valued by LBCC, having been given comprehensive support and case management meant to find an on-ramp to stable housing, as well as money for car repairs. Rosales felt like he mattered at LBCC, even after bringing his whole self to campus, just as Mu\u00f1oz had hoped.<\/p>\n Efforts to equalize opportunity in higher education over the decades have been insufficient, and yet, they have made it possible for someone like Mu\u00f1oz to graduate and then rise through the ranks. They have made it possible for his days of rationing gas and sink-bathing to open an institution\u2019s eyes to the need for a net to catch students who are slipping off its ivory tower, and for Mu\u00f1oz to push to create one, even if it must be stitched together from imperfect materials.<\/p>\n But the reality is that the majority of schools have massive holes in their nets. For the most part, colleges and universities still just create a list of resources and refer students out, suggesting they try their luck with local shelters and Craigslist.<\/p>\n When LBCC told Rosales in September that he had been offered housing through a rapid rehousing program called Jovenes \u2013 a two-bedroom, two-bath to be shared with three roommates \u2013 he began to cry, from relief but also from fear.<\/p>\n \u201cI never thought I was going to get out of here,\u201d he said of the Safe Parking Program. \u201cThis is my home, this is where I live, this is where I\u2019ve been \u2013 holidays, weekends, a birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n He finds comfort in knowing that the lot is always an option, as it is for the dozens of LBCC students living on the brink who have signed up for the program just in case. But he doesn\u2019t sleep there any more. \u201cI\u2019m not going back,\u201d Rosales said, and for the first time, he believes in his ability to make that happen.<\/p>\n He can feel in his truck-weary bones that he\u2019ll graduate, that he\u2019ll get that house he\u2019s been dreaming about: \u201cI\u2019m moving ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.<\/em><\/p>\n This story about <\/em>solutions to student homelessness was produced by The Hechinger Report, a non<\/em>-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\nStopgap solutions to a national problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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