CA Proposal to Allow Homeless College Kids to Sleep in Their Cars on Campus

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*checks notes*

Yup. That’s what it says right here.

How bad is California’s housing crisis? A first-in-the-nation bill would let students live in cars.

So…what in the wide, wide world of sports would compel someone to bring that up as a suggestion on any given campus, less mind introducing it as a legislative act?

Well, basically the crappy state of the state of California is to blame, if you read their justification.

Housing costs are through the roof, and there isn’t enough on-campus housing for all the students, so where are they supposed to lay their weary heads in between?

Yeah. Pretty amazing.

A progressive Democratic lawmaker is seeking a simple but jarring remedy of last resort for California’s college students navigating the state’s housing crisis: Let them sleep in their cars.

While roughly half a dozen state legislative proposals this year seek to fund student or faculty housing or loosen building regulations, the benefits would come far too late for current students struggling to stay afloat. With one in four California community college students experiencing homelessness in the past year, Democrats — who have a supermajority in the statehouse — face increasing pressure to deliver on affordability issues.

Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Southern California Democrat who has a doctorate in social work, said lawmakers can build long-term solutions while offering an immediate stopgap for a “worst case scenario.” His proposal, which cleared its first committee last month, would require community colleges and the California State University system to plan for an overnight parking program for students.

I guess that would turn a set number of the parking lots into a campus version of KOAs, as most of these schools have gym/shower facilities.

Oh, delightful.

…Without a sanctioned, on-campus parking program, students are left with no other option but to sleep in their cars somewhere off-campus where they might not be welcome, according to Jackson.

But, holy smokes – what a miserable state they are in. The numbers are really disturbing.

…Assemblyman Jackson wrote the bill to address the growing number of homeless students on college and university campuses. According to the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council, homelessness affects roughly 12% of community college students and 9% of university students. Another study found that 1 in 5 community college students in California, as well as 1 in 10 CSU students and one in 20 University of California students experienced homelessness. As a result, many colleges have needed to deal with a large number of students living in cars around campus. Some, including as Long Beach City College, counted as many as 70 students at one time living in cars on campus, prompting the University to have a secured on-campus parking structure be designated for their use during nights to accommodate them.

Horrifically, some figures were even higher.

…According to the Community College League of California, 24% of community college students surveyed in 2023 said they had been homeless in the past year. A 2020 report by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles found that one in 10 California State University system students had experienced homelessness.

Good for Long Beach City College to proactively watch out for its students, although I can’t imagine what the liability might be if they didn’t. Also, how do they differentiate between street rabble and students? 

Well, it cost the college a pretty penny to set it up, but it seems to have worked really well. I think the average age of the participants may have helped keep a lid on things, too.

…The college spent $200,000 per year to get the program running, starting a pilot at its trade-tech site before moving to a parking structure on the main campus with a direct line-of-sight from campus police headquarters. Students in the program have access to restrooms, showers and wireless internet. Of the 34 students who used the program during the 2023-24 school year, 22 remained through last fall, half were eligible for financial aid and all but four were older than 25.

I’m guessing they use parking stickers like we had because I do not doubt that available parking is just as precious now as it was when I was going to our local community college.

It was a scrum for every space if you weren’t the early bird.

If housing is through the roof, funding for the schools is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and colleges being tapped are pushing back. Not for lack of empathy for their students’ plights, but because they have no clue where the money to implement the directives would come from.

…However, there has been significant opposition coming from CSU and most California community colleges. Logistics issues have been a main concern, especially when it comes to freeing up lots and garages for the night and then getting them cleared in time by the morning for regular users to park. Another is cost, as security, maintenance and cleaning costs would rise significantly as a result. A massive state budget crisis causing CSU alone to lose $375 million a year in funding, or about 8% of total funding from the state, only casts more doubt on their ability to suddenly pay for an expensive new program.

“Establishing an overnight student parking program would require significant financial and administrative resources to ensure that students have a safe, clean and secure place to sleep at night,” explained Community College League of California policy manager Nune Garipian last month. “Our colleges, unfortunately, just do not have these resources available.”

Long Beach spent $200K to get their program running. Many schools do not have that lying around.

I am also confused by the notion that ‘community’ colleges should offer housing to begin with. Isn’t that sort of contrary to the concept? A ‘community college’ was, once upon a time, a commuter college within a geographic area accessible to residents. They weren’t ever meant to be a live-in university. The preponderance of students was intended to be people who lived in that community, drove or biked over for classes, and then went ‘home.’ 

This killjoy attitude has raised Assemblyman Jackson’s hackles. ‘It’s only money,’ which has consistently been the Sacramento Democratic way of looking at any reasonable and fiscal objections (re: difference of opinion) to whatever lunacy they have planned to impose next.

…“They aren’t taking a very moral position,” said Jackson over the weekend. “It’s just a difference of opinion. 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.”

And only in CA, where the streets in major cities already look like Third World S**tholes, does an assemblyman propose to possibly turn college campuses into the exact same squalor-laced pits that they’ve enabled elsewhere.

There is an air of disbelief that this has even been credibly proposed as a ‘solution’ when the obvious results already surround them. 

INSANE: California’s “Solution” to Housing Crisis—Let Students Sleep in Their Cars

A shocking new proposal in California would let students sleep in their cars on campus lots instead of addressing the root issue: the state’s housing shortage.

Fox’s Bill Hemmer asked, “Please… pic.twitter.com/kkXrEq48t3

— Whiplash347 (@Whiplash437) April 15, 2025

…Fox’s Bill Hemmer asked, “Please make sense of this!” Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt didn’t hold back: “This is nuts. California’s been destroyed by 50 years of anti-growth, far-left housing policies.” 

He warned that turning campuses into car-camping zones will create chaos: “Each one will become a homeless encampment. You can’t police it. It’s the kind of bad idea that drove people like me out of the state.”

But if there’s one thing CA has proven itself second to none in the world at, it’s ferociously doubling down on whatever insanity is at hand – doing the preposterous instead of the practical with whacked priorities.

As John’s earlier post points out, CA Democrats were busy plugging an UNEXPECTED! bazillion dollar Medi-Cal gap because they had to hand out free medical to illegals. Yet, here they have to fight over allowing homeless CA college kids to sleep in their cars on campus because these kids can’t afford a bed with a roof over their heads.

Yeah. 

That sounds about right.