SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — As many students in Sacramento area colleges and universities juggle the typical stresses of homework, after-school activities and socializing; a vulnerable subset of students deal with the added stress of not having a secure place to sleep at night.
According to a California Student Aid Commission survey, housing and food insecurity among college students has increased since 2018. Housing insecurity increased from 36% to 53%, and students dealing with food insecurity increased from 39% to 66%.
California lawmakers have taken steps to address the issue by investing in resources for students at campuses across the state.
In 2021, the legislature passed a law requiring colleges to establish basic needs resource centers and hire coordinators to oversee the programs.
Now a few years in, campuses in the Sacramento area offer various services, but all resource centers collectively agree there’s more work to do.
Here are how colleges across the Sacramento area are helping students deal with the issues of housing and food insecurity.
UC Davis (UCD)
The UC Davis Basic Needs Center started with a student-led food pantry open to anyone. From there it grew to an online food network resource that gave educational how-to tips and information on where to access healthy foods.
Thanks to funds from the state, UCD opened a basic needs center on campus. According to the school’s basic needs coordinator, Leslie Kemp, having a physical space was vital to their growth.
The growth allowed UCD to start addressing the issue of housing insecurity, starting with emergency basic needs grants students could receive if they needed help covering a month’s rent or a utility bill.
UCD then started a Rapid Rehousing program to help students who find themselves — for a variety of reasons — needing a safe place to sleep.
“Out in the quote ‘real world’ [sic] you can’t just give an unhoused person a bed to sleep in and say you’re done with them,” Kemp said.
It's what led to UCD bringing in in-house case manager Chelsea Harris for the rapid rehousing program, which helps students connect with outside services.
“Being embedded in the university has really allowed us to see the students [who] are coming through the program as students and as people,” Harris said. “...I’m able to see their academics; I’m able to see how their housing insecurity, how their food insecurity… how all of these things are impacting them.”
Starting as a pilot program last year, UC Davis students can access AggieFresh, which provides $291 a month for groceries for students who don’t qualify for CalFresh.
“It covers a loophole in Cal Fresh to cover students in need,” Kemp said.
Resources:
AggieFresh
Aggie Eats Food Truck
ASUCD Pantry
Rapid Rehousing Program
Emergency Housing
Housing Listings
Sacramento City College (SCC)
Andre Coleman, the Dean of Campus Interventions, says SCC’s approach to helping students dealing with homelessness is to be the outreach center. They don’t want to replicate services offered elsewhere.
“If you have real food needs, I need to get you to Sac Food Bank where there’s better options,” Coleman said.
Coleman says SCC is trying to be the bridge for students dealing with food and housing insecurity. He’s focused on “how do we move students from surviving to thriving.”
SCC opened its new basic needs resource center a little over a month ago. Coleman says the programs offered are designed to help students dealing with homelessness address the more underlying issues of food and housing insecurity.
The school provides both a food pantry and housing assistance. It also offers classes to teach life skills like cooking and budgeting.
“The assumption is everyone knows how to cook. That’s not true,” Coleman said. “If you’ve been broke and poor, you don’t know how to budget, you’ve just survived.”
Resources:
Food Distribution
Food Pantry
Laptop Loans
Hotspot Program
Textbook Voucher Assistance
Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) Grants
Cosumnes River College (CRC)
Brianna Ellis, the associate dean for student success and equity at CRC, says its basic needs center started in a grassroots fashion in 2016 by students who came together to start a food pantry.
Fully launching in 2022 — thanks to the investment from the state — Ellis says the focus is now on improving the existing programs to find what works best. She emphasizes the most important thing is to make sure students can stay focused on their school work.
“The first thing that goes is the classes,” Ellis said.
CRC offers three main resources for students:
The Hawk Food Market where students get access to food for no charge. The service is only available for CRC students enrolled in at least three credits.
Homes for Hawks is CRC’s central hub for connecting students to housing assistance programs.
CRC offers deposit reimbursements. Qualified students who have found permanent housing are eligible to receive a $1,000 reimbursement for a security deposit.
The school also offers $250 for students to use toward utility payments. To qualify for this, students must already have an outstanding bill or shut-off notice.
Those two housing assistance programs are only available to students who are enrolled in at least six units.
Resources:
Hawk Spot Food Market
Homes for Hawkes
The Hawk CARES Career Closet
Folsom Lake College
Folsom Lake College offers students in need of emergency housing assistance a two-week stay at a hotel while they look for more permanent options.
The school’s Basic Needs Resource Center is run through the Falcon CARES program. They offer a similar food pantry to the other schools.
Every Wednesday throughout the semester, they provide a food distribution event where any student can access fresh produce.
Besides the housing and food programs, the school also runs a laptop and hotspot loan program.
Resources:
Student Food Cabinets
Food and Gas Cards
Housing Assistance
Hotspot/Laptop Request
Student Emergency Fund
Textbook/Supply Voucher
Sacramento State University
Sac State offers housing assistance and rent subsidies to students struggling to make on-time payments. Students can apply for $1,500 for a security deposit and rent assistance.
Sac State has a Rapid Rehousing program providing 3-6 month leases for students dealing with homelessness. The rent is capped at $500 a month and it's overseen by the CARES program and Community-Based Organization case managers.
Resources:
Wellness Education Services & Workshops
ASI Food Pantry
Emergency Grant
Security deposit assistance
K-12 students in Sacramento:
The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) is governed by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which guarantees certain rights for students experiencing homelessness.
The definition of students dealing with homelessness is broader than what is typically viewed as homeless.
The school district is required to enroll any child who does not have access to fixed, regular nighttime residence. The students are also given priority when it comes to after-school programs and other extracurriculars.
Ashley Clark, the homeless education services program coordinator for SCUSD, says the district helps provide other necessities like transportation and food.
Schools offer a place for families to be connected with services like CalWorks and applications for housing vouchers. Clark adds school officials are usually the first to recognize people slipping into homelessness.
“We’re on the frontlines of this crisis,” Clark said.
Clark says the school district has made more of an effort to understand the scope of the issue since she started the role in November 2023.
She says the number of families who identify as homeless has grown 185% over the last year, partially due to better techniques for identification.
She estimates about 3,000 families are experiencing homelessness in the district, though homelessness numbers are chronically underreported, so the number could be much higher.
No matter if it’s a student in kindergarten or college, basic needs coordinators say the biggest key to helping students experiencing housing insecurity is understanding the systemic problems of homelessness.
“We cannot look at these things in isolation… the homelessness may be the symptom, not the cause,” Coleman said.
