Food & Housing in California Higher Ed, Especially UC

The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) has issued a report on food and housing insecurity as it affects UC, CSU, and community college students. The report is part of LAO's review of various aspects of the state budget. From the report:

Summary of Recommendations

• Provide up to $500,000 in one-time funding for a study on the incidence and causes of student food and housing insecurity across the higher education segments. Require results of the study to be released by October 2020—in time to inform 2021-22 budget deliberations.
• Direct the three public segments to continue working with the Department of Social Services to assess the effectiveness of CalFresh in addressing student food insecurity. Require associated information be provided to the Legislature no later than November 1, 2019—in time to inform 2020-21 budget deliberations.
• Direct the segments to share what they learned from their 2018-19 workgroup meetings. Require information be provided to the Legislature no later than November 1, 2019.
• Consider directing the higher education segments to work with other state agencies to assess the extent to which housing assistance programs are benefiting college students.
• Consider providing one-time funding to help sustain existing food and housing initiatives at the segments in 2019-20. The Legislature provided $1.5 million to UC in 2018-19 for such initiatives.

Full report at https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2019/4014/student-food-housing-uc-042519.pdf