A welcome pit stop: the US college using parking lots to help unhoused students

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/dec/09/us-university-student-homelessness-solutions

by mitchbob • 8 months ago

15 7 8 months ago

It is so sad that people consider sleeping in a car in a parking lot to be a good deal.

MrLeap2• 8 months ago

I don't want to bemoan this. There's some people who don't have the resources to house a bunch of people but do have authority over a parking lot. I applaud anyone doing what they can for others with what they've got.

Balance compassion for self and others.

tenacious_tuna• 8 months ago

+1 for harm reduction. it is a sad state of affairs, but it's better than nothing.

potato3732842• 8 months ago

When I was in school there were a handful of people (couple dozen in a student body of ~10k) who did it. They'd use the athletics center for shower and the buildings allowed 24hr key access for bathroom. Most of them had jobs in dining services for the free meal per shift. These people weren't looked at as being poor, they were looked at as hard-assed cheapskates who were toughing out a hard lifestyle and consequently saving money in the process and were generally envied for doing something most couldn't stomach. If you can tolerate it it's a great deal if you're a student because you can use student access to facilities to cover a lot of your other needs and it's truly just a place to sleep and the ~20yo body can tolerate the lifestyle. Motorhomes weren't allowed and they were real touchy about box trucks so minivans and conversion vans were mostly what you'd see though there was the occasional station wagon.

And this was not in a mild climate, wikipedia says the mean daily temp in January is 18deg (freedom). That said, I have no doubt that snootier universities didn't allow these sorts of things and would harass the shit out of you with their PD if you tried this there.

jasonvorhe• 8 months ago

Unhoused is newspeak.

MrLeap2• 7 months ago

Verily, mine ears do smart, for folk now christen every trifle with some newborn word unkenn’d of honest ages past.

bsder• 8 months ago

In this instance, it's a community college in California. Most of community colleges don't have any dorms but they have generally really large parking lots that are completely empty outside of class hours.

Any homeless person who can get themselves together enough to actually enroll and attend classes deserves every ounce of help that the state can muster. The ability to be a student is a really strong signal and sorting function.

Side note: the community colleges in California are gem. They tend to be as close to free as they can be made and even if you have an advanced degree the classes are way cheaper than the Universities. And often the instructors are the same people who would be teaching you at the big University only in a much smaller class.

A welcome pit stop: the US college using parking lots to help unhoused students

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