Anthony Lucido
January 27, 2020
De Anza College is partnering with the Bill Wilson Center, a homeless advocacy organization, in a 100 day initiative to help young adults with homelessness. The partnership aims to address the growing issue of housing insecurity on campus.
In the spring of 2018 the De Anza food pantry conducted a survey, which revealed that 18% of participants said they had faced housing insecurity in the past 18 months.
“Student homelessness is becoming a focal point for the college,” said Erika Flores, Office of Outreach program coordinator.
Currently the resources provided by De Anza for these issues are limited. Students can obtain contact information from other agencies on homelessness at the Office of Outreach.
Flores said De Anza specific information regarding homelessness and housing is only being obtained recently. In the second week of this quarter, 15 students sought out help regarding housing issues.
The collaboration will also allow for De Anza to become a co-location alongside West Valley College. A counselor from the center will be coming to De Anza every Friday providing help and information, and will be at West Valley and other locations on other days.
But these programs are at the very early stages.
“This is a shared frustration, but there isn’t a very clear time frame,” said student trustee Genevieve Kolar, 21, math major.
Kolar said that there are a lot of factors that go into the issues surrounding homelessness and housing and slows the process down for finding resources for housing insecurity.
Student advocacy plays a big part in improving De Anza’s homelessness and housing resources. With Kolar and many other students’ efforts in advocacy, the issues of homelessness and housing have become one of the top priorities this year for the Board of Trustees.
Alongside student advocacy, student outreach also plays a role.
Not many students are aware of these types of services and programs that De Anza provides, and it can be difficult for them to do so.
“I’ve heard about the housing and homelessness programs, but I don’t really know much beyond that,” said Ian LaMarche, 18, business major.
Kolar said that outreach is something that is lacking for why students aren’t utilizing these types of resources and programs at De Anza.
The partnership with the Bill Wilson Center is still developing, and will continue to grow as more students become aware of it.
Comments