California’s housing crisis is no secret . People may disagree over the solutions to the housing crisis, but by any measure, the state needs millions more housing units , and that has, in turn, fueled a homelessness crisis along with it. Building more housing is the only way to do really fix things, but you can’t make several million apartments appear overnight, which means occasionally making less-than-ideal compromises. For example, one state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require community colleges and state universities to create programs that allow students to sleep in their cars, Politico reports .
The state is already working on increasing funding for student and faculty housing, as well as allowing developers to build housing more quickly, and those are objectively better for everyone in the long term. Current students, however, need help immediately, not in a few months and a few years. The numbers aren’t small, either. One in four California community college students has reportedly experienced homelessness in the last year. So while it’s far from an ideal solution, Assemblymember Corey Jackson introduced the bill to require officially sanctioned overnight parking to, at the very least, give these students somewhere safe to sleep.
Jackson, who has a doctorate in social work, understands letting students sleep in their cars won’t fix the state’s affordability crisis, but as he put it in a recent hearing, ”This just deals with the harsh realities that we find ourselves in.”
Colleges And Universities Push Back
Neither the California State University nor the community college systems support Jackson’s bill, pointing to the need for funding in order to comply, as well as the fact that it isn’t a long-term solution to the problem. Offering to exempt them from liability and ensure funding is available before they’re required to implement a plan hasn’t done much to change their minds, either. ”It’s just a difference of opinion,” Jackson told Politico. “I believe that we are in a housing crisis. We are in a homelessness crisis, and so every single agency needs to do their part to help with the issue.”…