In California, Desperate College Students Compete for Spots in Trailer Park
At UC Santa Cruz, 44% of undergraduates are considered ‘obscenely rent burdened’
By Christine Mai-Duc, 5-1-23
Laura Chappell lives with six other roommates in a house near the University of California, Santa Cruz that has termite damage, annual rat infestations, and gopher holes throughout the backyard. Two of the seven spaces they use as bedrooms are unheated and unpermitted. She pays $963 a month, nearly half of her take-home pay, for the smallest of them. “This is a steal,” said the 31-year-old, who is in her sixth year of a Ph.D. program in biology.
California has long prided itself for having some of the most highly regarded public universities in the nation—some of which are in wealthy, scenic coastal communities like Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. But housing costs have soared in the state over the past decade due to a lack of new construction, making it difficult for some students to live close enough to those universities to attend them. “That promise of an accessible public education is threatened because the housing costs are so enormous,” said Steven McKay, a sociology professor at UCSC. “It’s just making it really, really difficult for our working class students.”
Between July 2021 and April 2022, the University of California assisted an estimated 3,165 students struggling with food and housing, a 15% increase from the year before, according to a report by university officials to state legislators. The system’s 10 campuses enroll nearly 300,000 students. In Santa Cruz, the problem has been exacerbated by a flood of remote workers who arrived from the Bay Area during the pandemic and a 2020 wildfire that destroyed 900 housing units countywide.
About 9% of UCSC undergraduates reported experiencing homelessness according to a 2020 study by University of California, Los Angeles researchers, the highest at any UC campus. Santa Cruz is the second most expensive market for renters in the nation behind San Francisco, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group. Data compiled by UCSC shows single rooms in homes off campus cost an average of $1,300 to $1,500 monthly.
Mr. McKay led a 2021 study that found many UCSC students were forced to take out loans to pay rent and lived in makeshift illegal units in garages, living rooms and pool sheds. Nearly four in five undergraduates surveyed were rent-burdened, spending at least 30% of their income on rent. Mr. McKay and researchers created a new category, “obscene rent burden,” for those spending 70% or more of their monthly wages on rent. Some 44% of undergraduate students surveyed fell in that category. The university currently has enough beds in on-campus housing for about half of its nearly 20,000 students, the highest share of any UC campus.
One of the most sought-after housing options at UCSC is Camper Park, a 42-space trailer park owned and operated by the university. For less than the cost of a room in a shared apartment on the private market, students get their own camper trailer, equipped with a mini-fridge, gas stove and—if they are lucky—an oven. “It’s like 800 bucks a month, and you get your whole own space,” said Damien Stoffel, a senior majoring in literature who has lived there two years.
Emptying his gray water tank weekly can be annoying, and he doesn’t enjoy the occasional earthworm that crawls into the communal camp-style showers, but living in a trailer keeps Mr. Stoffel’s monthly housing cost below the maximum his parents, both elementary school teachers, agreed to pay.
The camper park is Leobardo Hernandez’s first-choice housing for next year. A 33-year-old undergraduate who picked fruit and worked in construction before returning to school to study psychology, he currently shares a one-bedroom mobile home with three relatives in Watsonville, some 20 miles from Santa Cruz. Mr. Hernandez, who pays roughly $600 a month including utilities, said he would never be able to afford a room off-campus. “I really just need a place to shower and sleep,” said Mr. Hernandez. “I’m trying to find the cheapest place I can, just so I can pursue my dreams.” Mr. Hernandez said most days he gets by on two granola bars and a concoction of green tea, espresso, lemon slices and caffeinated drink powder through lunch. Sometimes he eats dinner at the dining hall when a friend swipes him in...
University officials say they anticipate having housing for an additional 3,700 students by the fall of 2028...
Full story at https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-housing-crisis-leaves-college-students-eager-to-live-in-trailers-75177971.
No comments:
Post a Comment