These California college students live in RVs to afford the rising costs of education

Nestled on the Northern California coast amongst forests of towering redwood timber is Cal Poly Humboldt, one of 23 campuses in the California State University system, the largest public college community in the U.S. 

The campus is dwelling to a quantity of students whose battle to afford each the rising price of a college education and California’s high cost of housing has led to dwelling in their automobiles. 

“I don’t feel homeless, but I am legally homeless,” stated Brad Butterfield, a journalism scholar at Cal Poly Humboldt who advised CBS News he’s amongst dozens of students who live in an RV or different car.

One in 10 students inside the CSU system have skilled homelessness, in accordance to a 2020 report from UCLA.

Butterfield and a number of other different students parked on campus till faculty officers enforced the prohibition of in a single day tenting in November 2023.

“This is becoming a norm for students to be able to afford college,” Butterfield stated. “It’s much cheaper, and it’s the only way I’d be able to go to school. If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t be here.”

In September, the CSU system voted to elevate tuition, which is able to quantity to a 34% rise over 5 years. For the 2024-2025 faculty yr, annual tuition for in-state undergraduate students will probably be $6,084, which doesn’t embody bills equivalent to housing. 

Some of the Cal Poly Humboldt students who beforehand parked in a single day on campus say they’re now struggling to discover off-campus parking for his or her RVs. In Arcata, California, the place the university is positioned, there’s a 72-hour parking restrict on metropolis streets.

“The only thing we are ever asking for is somewhere to park, so I have somewhere to sleep,” stated Maddy Montiel, a current graduate of Cal Poly Humboldt with a level in environmental science and administration who lives in an RV she’s affectionately named “Pearl.” 

Montiel and Butterfield, who’re relationship, park their automobiles collectively for added safety.

“What has become the most difficult thing is just finding a place to exist,” Butterfield stated, noting that quite a few parking tickets “come with the territory of living in a vehicle.”

Hours after Montiel and Butterfield relocated their RVs to curb house in entrance of an empty lot, a police officer once more warned Montiel of the metropolis’s three-day parking restrict.

“It gets pretty tiring, having to move all the time,” Montiel stated.

“Being told to leave, but not being told where to go or why you have to leave — it’s just, ‘We don’t want you here’ … when you are told that by the university and now by the city, too, I mean you can brush it off, but at the end of the day that sucks,” Butterfield stated.

Cal Poly Humboldt cited the “health and safety of the campus community” for his or her parking enforcement in an announcement, saying that “university parking lots are not intended for overnight camping and are not equipped with the sanitation and other facilities that are necessary to support RVs or other vehicles overnight.”

Cal Poly Humboldt biology scholar Carrie, who requested not to present her final identify, lives out of a 20-year-old faculty bus she refurbished.

“You have to worry about things like… how much power you have, running water, like, where you’re going to shower,” she stated. “But really the biggest stressor has been, where am I going to be safe for the night?”

Carrie referred to as the scholar housing state of affairs a “humanitarian crisis” amid the rising price of tuition. 

In an effort to present some reduction, two Democratic California legislators launched AB 1818, a invoice that might set up pilot packages at group schools and faculties inside the CSU system to permit students who use automobiles as housing to park in a single day on campuses with a sound parking allow.

“The status quo is not acceptable,” stated invoice co-author Assemblymember Corey Jackson in an announcement to CBS News. “Solving the homelessness crisis is a state priority, and our colleges and universities, as key state institutions, must actively contribute to solving it.”

Jackson’s colleague and invoice co-author Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, advised CBS News: “While this bill is not the solution to the housing crisis, it provides a crucial safety net for students facing housing insecurity, ensuring they are supported, not penalized, as they work towards stable housing.”

The invoice strikes to California’s Assembly Floor for a vote subsequent week.

The students who spoke to CBS News stated their selection to live in automobiles reveals simply how a lot they worth getting an education. 

“I know some folks might say, ‘Well, you know, you picked this lifestyle,'” Carrie stated. “I think it shows that we’re resilient and creative, and we want to be here because we’ve chosen to be here and this is how much we want to be here.”