Community college students need housing, Cal State LA will house some for the first time

Starting this fall, 56 students from East Los Angeles College will use surplus apartment-style housing at Cal State L.A. in a first-ever partnership to address housing insecurity.

“ It's a natural marriage, a partnership, because many of our students from East Los Angeles College tend to attend Cal State L.A., and the neat part about this is that not only are they going to be housed at Cal State L.A., they will be provided with the resources typically given to Cal State students,” said Alberto Román, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.  “But more importantly, they're on campus and they can begin to see themselves as potential Cal State students.”

More than 50% of Los Angeles area community college students have declared they’re housing insecure, prompting a three-pronged approach by the Los Angeles Community College District to lease the excess rooms from Cal State L.A.

The partnership is for five years. By the third year, Román said the plan is to have 120 community college students housed at Cal State L.A. The partnership, as well as LACCD’s new plans to build and buy housing units close to community college campuses, is being funded by Measure LA.

“We at LACCD, which is the largest community college system in the country, have been grappling with this for a long time as we've seen L.A. deal with a housing crisis, with a housing affordability crisis, and we've seen so many of our students be affected by housing insecurity or the lack of housing,” said Sara Hernandez, board president of the Los Angeles Community College District.

It’s a moral issue for the district to ensure students have housing, she added, but also “an issue of enrollment.”

“ If people can't afford to live in Los Angeles, especially young people, then they are not going to be able to utilize the community college system, meaning our enrollment goes down,” Hernandez said.  

Other ways LACCD is addressing housing

Román said the LACCD is also exploring a housing partnership with California State University, Dominguez Hills to house community college students on their campus.

And through funding received from Measure LA, the LACCD is also embarking on a project to build housing on land they own at Pierce College and City College.

“ We will also look at procuring properties close to our colleges that could serve as dorms and are within walking distance of the college,” Román said. “ We have also put out a bid for property acquisition, meaning that we invite folks who may have properties available for housing to bid on that and to make them available to us.”

In 2022, voters approved Measure LA, which allowed the LACCD to issue a $5.3 billion bond, financed by a new property tax, to improve infrastructure and job training facilities across its nine colleges. Around $500 million was earmarked for housing.

The district’s goal,  Román said, was to fully pay for and provide housing for 1,500 to 2,000 students.