Adding to the Student Loan Crises are Savage New Figures on Student Homeless and Students Facing Hunger and Food Shortages.

by Uncle Paulie

The above chart, for the year 2013 (at least 4 years ago) shows the number of homeless kids in Public Schools state wide.  This would include presumably all grades up through 12.  The total of 64,218 would be at least a few percentage points higher today if current trends are applied.

The situation with the California State University system is not much better.  Their current report says that out of 470,000 students in the system, around 12% are in “unstable housing”, the politically correct term that is generally thought of as “homeless”. So by their own very rough count, 56,400 students in the system are homeless.

Even more shocking, if possible, is that about 112,800 students suffer from “food insecurity”, meaning in plain English that they are not getting enough to eat and some are actually starving at times.

What Needs To Be Done

Waiting for some future minor student housing is out of the question.  Action needs to be taken now.

Student Housing

1.  Let students at CSU park and sleep in their vehicles overnight in the parking lots.
2.  Remove “no parking at night” signs from the surrounding area.
3.  Look into buying used RVs, vans and Motor-homes to use as temporary student housing.
4.  Offer courses for credit for students to creatively “fix up” and make the vehicles look cool and  artistic.
5.  Beef up shower and bathroom facilities.  Keep these open late at night.
6.  Increase security on campus to protect kids sleeping in their vehicles at night.
7.  If on campus parking is not enough then off-campus parking lots should be considered.  There’s  plenty of office buildings with empty parking spaces at night.
8. . If not enough bathing and shower facilities are available then coupons or “chits” should be .issued to students to use local health club facilities.

Food

1.  This is a very serious problem.  A long term solution is that the CSU system is going to have to  get into the food production business.  Property has to be acquired and students can volunteer  for credit to plant food gardens.  The schools should be able to grow a large part of their own  food needs. Fruit trees should be planted all over the campus areas.
2.  Short term students and faculty need to form “Food Drives” to collect food from anywhere you  can, markets, bins placed in Starbucks and Post Offices and of course setting up outside the big  markets and have a canned food drive.
3.  Farmer’s markets can be contacted to supply excess food from the day’s sales.
4.  Some public schools are already putting in gardens to grow food as a credit.  This should be  expanded until the system can be self-sufficient.
5.  Local residents should be encouraged to plant, with student help, gardens in their front yards.  Tax credits can be given to the residents who cooperate.  It might be possible to draw a 2 mile  circle around each school and give the tax credits in that special district to residents who enlist in  the program.
6.  Many other ideas will come forth to give the schools housing and food security.  The next step  will be to cancel all student debt, jail crooked loan companies, and lower the costs of college for  all.