How Homeless College Students Get by at California's Humboldt State | NowThis

I wake up back there and my head's in there and I slide out sit down right here compose myself a little bit and then I start the car and I Drive up to the locker room get a shower shave just you know start my day start studying if you don't have credit if you don't have a lot of money like how hard it is to get a place your parents would they pay for an apartment here for you like if if they would they cover the costs no they want it so this is your walk to school every day yeah from the van uh-huh it's amazing yeah it's very beautiful Humboldt State has a lot of perks to it like beauty of the campus jasmine is a 23 year old college student at Humboldt State University she's been living homeless amongst her peers for more than a year do they know homeless do they know that you you know don't have an apartment yes now because I tell people because that's how you find out who else is going to that she's a senior majoring in kinesiology on a full-ride academic scholarship who carries what would be her bedroom closet on her shoulder show us we got you got your I got my running shoes pants for the day and some pants to running in like toothbrush like that's on my locker California's unaffordable housing crisis combined with the rising costs of a college degree is putting many students in a tough spot a California State University an estimated 50,000 students throughout the system are homeless where do you keep your clothes that close they're in a locker room that's oh I have two lockers one for my clean clothes and went for my dirty clothes yeah you have figured out a system of how to do this this is hacked out for sure Nolan is a junior at Humboldt State majoring in geology but you'd never know that he's a homeless student torn between comfort and student debt is this what you thought it was gonna be like you know I didn't really have a super solid plan I just knew that I needed to get up here and start school and living in my car was I just felt the best option for me so on any given night how many kids would you say are sleeping in the parking lot uh on an average night probably like three or four that I know of Jazmin has furnished her van with many of the household goods she would want in her apartment if she had one I keep all my kitchen stuff in this container can you pull that out and then I keep all my black beans containers here your silverware yeah usually I just get silverware from the school like the plastic ware because it's just so hard cleaning stuff and so this is from the neighboring van some people might look at this and say this is wrong it's wrong that that students have to live like this at a California State University the school should help educate students on how to apply for housing make it a mandatory thing that students know how to apply for housing why do you think there are so many homeless kids at the school at this particular school it's the housing stock Airbnb and also the policies and practices of the property managers in there yeah a majority of our students are coming up here with no structure or foundation for them to settle what about taking out loans to pay for rent a lot of students that's what they have to do they take out loans that pays for their living expenses I'm on a scholarship the thing is is like I've turned in all those applications I paid all those fees still didn't get any responses I don't want that a financial burden right coming out of school and having to worry about that right away so it's like when you're feeding into the system and nothing gives you anything back you know what do you do that you're kind of just screwed up until about six months ago there was no real support for off-campus housing the school appointed Shantay cat to help students she was a homeless college student herself when she first arrived three years ago taking on sixteen thousand dollars in debt do you think that housing should be a right I really believe so especially when we're trying to consider retention and and giving people access to get out of economic issues and and come out of first-generation college education hundreds of miles away at California State University's long beach campus outside Los Angeles 24 year-old Imani Moses was was for seven months last year how did you do it I mean in a small car so I just put my Sun visors up and I just sat in the backseat and I just crawled up a football the university helped domani by letting her stay in a dorm room for a month but this campus only has six temporary beds allocated for emergency housing at a school with 37,000 students how many students do you think are gonna need that every I mean how many beds are you gonna need I honestly think it's in the hundreds in terms of how many beds were gonna need the student body president says more needs to be done students in order to qualify to be placed into an emergency housing dorm basically have to prove that they're having affordability issues and then exhaust all of their financial resources which include FAFSA financial aid and basically loans we're basically putting a student in debt at times to help them we asked the CSU Long Beach administration how many students seek emergency housing assistance they said they don't know but the numbers are significantly growing as awareness of their program has increased back at Humboldt it's getting late and across the parking lot Noland is getting ready for bed hey man hey Dad how you doing on good how was school this is actually a big deal cuz you're my first houseguest actually what do you see in the future for yourself stand true to myself and being a well-rounded person too but I'm focusing on becoming the best geologist I can be so I can be hireable right at the end of it all Nolan and jasmine are far from alone but any longer-term solution needs action from the local state and federal government and from schools themselves to confront the problem you know why I should go grab my burrito but for now students face impossible choices between food and shelter between a tough reality in the present and potentially unpayable debts in the future [Music] you [Music]

Channel: NowThis

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Keywords: humboldt state university, humboldt state, Homeless college students in california, homeless students, homeless college students, humboldt state university move in, humboldt state university campus tour, humboldt state university tour, humboldt state university dorms, homeless students in school, NowThis, homeless, homelessness, California State University, HSU, College, student debt, student loans, college students, homelessness crisis, homeless crisis, Homelessness in california

Id: ck-89phIXsM

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 04 2019