Athena, a white Turkish Angora cat, meows until she gets the attention she wants from her human, Diana Ashley Sanchez, who is at the bottom of the steps of house number 26 talking to reporters about her job as student manager for the Lotus Living Community.
Athena curiously wonders towards Sanchez and sniffs with excitement once she realizes Sanchez is holding out some peanut butter.
Sanchez, a second-year college student at Imperial Valley College, is one of the 26 residents of the tiny homes community that the college, in a partnership with the city of El Centro, developed in less than a year during the pandemic to alleviate homelessness among their student population.
Homelessness problems and needs have grown exponentially during the last decade, with over half a million people going homeless on a single night according to The Council of Economic Advisers. The issue of homelessness is not exclusive to just certain demographics, it can happen to anyone.
According to three different studies done by researchers at universities from the California State University System, “1 in 5 California Community College, 1 in 10 California State University and 1 in 20 UC students are homeless or at risk.”
Experiencing this first hand, Imperial Valley College (IVC) officers came together with the city of El Centro to create an initiative to mitigate homelessness among their college student population.
The idea to create the Tiny House program started when President Garcia and Vice President Johnson found two homeless students living out of their car, according to James Dalske, dean of Student Affairs, Enrollment Management and Campus Safety. These two students' stories inspired faculty members and the community to create new housing resources in the area.
The encounter encouraged conversations within different communities and higher educational institutions to assess the impact homelessness had on students’ mental health and academic achievements to come up with solutions and resources to mitigate the rising issue, Dalske said.
“Then we began to talk with the city and the county and really started to realize that there are no services for our foster youth students when they timeout or for homeless students in general, and began this conversation with these three parties, ‘Hey, how can we make this happen?’” Dalske said.
After a proposal was made, city officials from El Centro partnered with IVC to provide aid to students in the community who were struggling with homelessness. The city committed to a 50-year lease on one acre of parcel land that is located near a variety of restaurants and businesses where students can find jobs.
The Lotus Living Rise Above Resilient Community, the formal name of the Tiny House project, received $2.6 million under a Homekey Program grant provided by the State of California. According to their website, the Homekey Program is a statewide program that promotes safe, affordable homes and vibrant, inclusive, sustainable communities for all of California.
Additional funding for the project came from federal grants as well. “The City of El Centro receives federal program funding that we get from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is called the Community Development Block Grant program” Marcela Piedra, El Centro’s city manager, said.
The partnership allowed operation for the Tiny House project to open in June 2021.
“Imperial Valley College received statewide attention and nationwide attention for being one of the first, if not the first community college or, college in general, to do this anywhere,” Dalske said.
The Lotus Living Rise Above Resilient Community offers 26 tiny homes that are 170-square foot single occupancy. “When students walk into their tiny homes, they have everything they need from pots and pans to their fridge and other hygiene kits,” Joshua Lopez, housing director for Student Housing and Equity at IVC, said.
All of 26 units in the community are turnkey ready for students including a bed, a stove, a desk, a laundry unit and a full bathroom. These amenities allow students to focus on their academics rather than stressing about making money to secure housing, Lopez said.
According to IVC officials, IVC has focused on creating sustainable housing that works for students and the environment meeting students’ needs at a low cost.
“To build really sustainable housing, our students only pay $200 a month in rent that covers all their rent and their utilities,” Dalske said.
A community approach
The city of El Centro has an active task force dedicated to finding solutions to alleviate the homelessness problem and, through partnering up with IVC, they have been able to inspire other campuses in their community to create similar programs for their students that are at risk of being homeless, task force members said.
San Diego State University’s Imperial Valley campus partnered with the city of El Centro to build their first residence hall in efforts to grow the student population and provide housing resources for students attending IVC and SDSU's Imperial Valley campus.
The student population is composed of mostly low-income students, females, and Hispanics who are homeless or at risk of being homeless, Interim Dean Mark Wheeler said. All of the 800 students enrolled at SDSU Imperial Valley are on financial aid, being able to receive a free education.
“Realistically, the project could take up to 12 to 18 months to complete construction on the residence hall,” Wheeler said.
Currently, there are no housing programs offered at SDSU Imperial Valley campus but soon students will have a residence hall once the 8.6-million-dollar funding gets approved this spring.
The location for the new residence hall has yet to be determined but will provide housing for IVC and SDSU students. The expectation is to accommodate students from both campuses.
“In fact, the hope is that there will be 38 beds with community college students in them, and 38 beds with Imperial Valley students and that we’re sharing equally the usage,” Wheeler said.
“The new residence hall will probably be located in the Broley campus, or it will be in the Southeast corner of the Calexico campus, or it will be in the corner of the IVC campus,” Wheeler said.
In order to qualify for the new residence hall, students will have to be enrolled full time and must be at risk of becoming homeless or currently homeless.
As the studies mentioned above show, homelessness is prevalent in the higher education system and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem.
“Since the pandemic there’s been an increase in student housing instability because (students) have lost jobs, their families have lost jobs and/or family members have passed awa; meaning that students are in places where they cannot afford to pay rent and they cannot afford things now versus before the pandemic,” Keiara Aleen, housing stability coordinator at SDSU, said.
In addition to the Tiny House project and the residence hall, SDSU and IVC have implemented several crisis responses providing students immediate support ranging from food pantries, free hygiene kits, short term aid, such as gift cards for groceries, to long-term housing support, several staff said.
These new solutions created by the city of El Centro and higher education staff and faculty in the area have paved the path for others to follow these programs in efforts to mitigate student homelessness.
For Sanchez, who started living in the Tiny Houses project since August 2021, all of these efforts are working.
“Honestly, just coming through here and (seeing) the sign that says Lotus Community, I am like, it feels welcoming in itself.”
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Alani Ayala, Samantha Festin, Fátima López and Ariadna Rodríguez contributed reporting.
Carolina Herrera is a journalism student at San Diego State University.
Elena Terlikas is a digital media student at San Diego State University currently doing an internship at Metropolitan Barcelona.
This story was produced with the support of the Bilingual Program at the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University in partnership with Project Sage.