California Colleges Debate Letting Students Sleep in Cars

With nearly three out of five of California’s community college students facing housing insecurity, sleeping in their cars on campus becomes the safest option for many. Yet most of the state’s colleges don’t allow the practice, writes Briana Mendez-Padilla in a deep dive for CALmatters, pointing out one school that did launch a Safe Parking Program: Long Beach City College.

“To help these students, multiple legislative measures have tried to create safe parking options similar to Long Beach City College’s,” but legislators killed one proposed bill Assembly Bill 1818, in August. Some community college districts opposed the bill, which would have required the creation of safe parking pilot programs, citing concerns about liability risk and cost.

In Long Beach, students can park in a designated lot next to the campus safety building, where they can access bathrooms and nearby showers. “For the 2022-23 academic year, the program had a total of 24 students. Twelve of them found transitional or permanent housing. For fall 2023, 21 students enrolled in the program, two obtained permanent housing and 19 of them continued into spring 2024.”

Other schools aren’t as welcoming. “On Oct. 25, 2023, Cal Poly Humboldt students received a mass announcement stating that the university would begin enforcing a parking policy it had previously overlooked and would be evicting students who were found sleeping in their vehicles overnight.”

Assemblymember Corey Jackson, who introduced AB 1818, says he will reintroduce it next year.