SAGA Continues for College Students

Housing insecurity among college students… the saga continues. Low-income students continue to look for a place to live on campus and find themselves living in their cars. This is what it happened to Terrel Thompson (a high achieving student) of UC Berkeley.

“Academically it was hard, because I’m worried about finding housing and I’m worried about my clothes and I’m worried about getting my car broken into all the time,” said the 19-year-old Thompson, who now lives in a studio apartment, he found last september.

College students across the US are looking for housing for this 2022-2023 school year. And it won’t be easy. Students across the states were denied on-campus housing last fall and found themselves sitting out the year or living in cars or surf-couching, as rents surge due to the lack of student housing.

For some colleges, the reason is straight increased in demand, increased price. For other, like California, the shortage reflects the conflict between colleges and homeowners who don’t want new student housing. i.e. University of California, Berkeley, lawsuit by neighbors over the school growth.