California Proposal To Let College Students Sleep In Their Cars Highlights Housing Crisis
By KIMBERLEY HAAS
A proposed bill that would allow college students in California to sleep in their vehicles highlights how unattainable housing is for young adults.
According to the Community College League of California, 24% of community college students surveyed in 2023 said they had been homeless in the past year. A 2020 report by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles found that one in 10 California State University system students had experienced homelessness.
To offer a short-term solution, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Southern California Democrat, has proposed AB 90, requiring California Community Colleges and California State University campuses to establish overnight parking programs for eligible students facing housing insecurity.
Jackson introduced AB 90 last month, saying this bill confronts a harsh reality for students who are already sleeping in their vehicles or other displaced settings because they are unable to find affordable housing.
“What I am proposing is practical, immediate relief overnight parking programs that turn campus lots into safe, temporary havens while the state works on lasting solutions,” he said.
“I think the idea is this: There continues to be a growing need to help our students who are homeless to be stable in safe environments to be able to continue their education journey. This is meant to be a last resort when there’s no access to vouchers, when there’s no access to other alternatives, which is, of course, stable and healthy shelter.”
Jackson said he knows there are differences in opinion when it comes to this topic, but said there is a housing and homelessness crisis that needs to be addressed. He introduced a bill in the 2023-2024 session year that would have required the chancellor of California Community Colleges and the chancellor of California State University to establish pilot programs to allow overnight parking. It wasn’t successful.
The lack of affordable places for college students to live points to a bigger issue in California: The high cost of rent for everyone.
Rents in California are higher than in other parts of the country.
The median asking rent in the Los Angeles area is $2,747. Around San Jose, it’s $3,230, and in the San Francisco market, it’s $2,695, according to a Redfin analysis published on April 14.
Nationally, the median asking rent is $1,610.
It also highlights a national issue: The high cost of rent everywhere.
In the New York City area, the median asking rent is $2,843. Around Washington, DC, it is $2,061.
Although nationally, asking rents have stabilized below their 2022 record high of $1,705, prices are expected to increase as economic uncertainties push more people to choose renting over homeownership.
“People may opt to rent instead of buy homes because the turmoil around tariffs has fueled widespread economic uncertainty. Tariffs have already caused huge swings in the stock market, and they will lead to higher prices for many goods and services, along with increased unemployment,” Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao said in a statement.
Advocates say more affordable rental housing is needed.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the lowest-income renters in the U.S. face a shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available rental homes. They estimate that three-quarters of renters with extremely low incomes spend more than half of their income on rent.
NLIHC released its annual report, The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, on March 13.
“States with the most severe shortages – Nevada, Oregon, California, Arizona, and Texas – have fewer than 30 affordable rental homes available for every 100 extremely low-income renters,” a press release states. “All 50 of the largest metropolitan areas also have a shortage of affordable and available rentals for the lowest-income renters.”
There has been some attention paid to the housing crisis under President Donald Trump.
On Jan. 22, Trump signed a memorandum to deliver emergency price relief for American families and defeat the cost-of-living crisis. He ordered all federal agencies to improve the affordability of necessary goods and services.
This included actions to “drastically lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.”
Secretary Scott Turner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Doug Burgum at the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a joint task force to use federal lands for affordable housing on March 17.
The agencies will take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable.