Diana Berrios dropped out of school after receiving poor grades. At that moment he understood that no matter how much effort he made, the instability at home would not allow him to improve academically.
The young woman lived with her mother after years of living in the Los Angeles County foster system; both places described by her as having traumatic environments that affected her concentration in her studies.
Without many options, Berrios made the decision to look for a quieter place that would allow him to continue his studies.
“I thought about sleeping in the theater at Cerritos College because I couldn’t go home, I didn’t have a home,” said the 21-year-old.
Like many other college students in the United States, Berrios experienced housing insecurity.
Housing insecurity is an umbrella term that encompasses several dimensions such as: affordability, safety, quality, housing insecurity and loss, according to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
According to a 2023 survey by the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC), 65% of community college students, 52% of California State University (CSU) students, and 27% of students in the University of California (UC) system reported housing insecurity.
Despite the seriousness of the problem, until now the state does not have close statistics on how many young students are experiencing housing insecurity, according to a report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO).
For this reason, only surveys and estimates carried out by different non-governmental institutions are used.
One of the organizations that has supported students experiencing homelessness for the last 30 years is JóvenesInc.org which is based in Boyle Heights.
“The cost of living in Los Angeles is so high that if you really want to attend college, it limits your ability to work as much as necessary to afford housing,” said Eric Hubbard, director of college development and success at Jóvenes Inc.
Currently, the organization has partnered with 11 community colleges and universities in Los Angeles County including: East LA College, Cerritos College, Long Beach City College, Cal State Northridge, and more.
According to Hubbard, there is a referral system where basic resource centers in schools connect their students with Jóvenes Inc., where they are assigned a case manager.
Luckily, Berrios was one of those students.
After beginning to work with LINC/NextUP, an organization that supports and provides services for former foster students attending Cerritos College, Berrios was connected to Jóvenes Inc., thanks to its director.
Grades improved
“I’ve had a home for a year and it’s been amazing,” the young woman said. “I love it here because my grades improved, I met amazing people, and I have a case manager who helps me a lot.”
Today, she lives in a two-story house with two roommates where they have their own space to sleep, eat and relax at a price impossible to obtain anywhere in the county.
Berrios pays only $385 a month in rent, this means that he does not have to worry too much about money to pay the rent, which allows him to dedicate enough time to school.
“It is very easy to pay and I don’t have to stress about whether I will have enough to pay the rent monthly,” said the young woman.
In addition to low-cost rent, the organization provides internet service, water, gas, refrigerator, bed, air conditioning and desk completely free, according to Berrios.
The organization receives different types of housing in the Los Angeles area and sometimes a building or home where they can implement shared housing among their students.
In fiscal year 2023-2024, Jóvenes Inc., served 338 college students and 36% of those students identify as Latino or Hispanic.
From 2016-2020, Jóvenes Inc. used private foundation funds for its university success programming.
Today, the organization receives funding through state bill AB 74 that passed in 2019.
This measure allocated $19 million specifically to address homelessness among college students.
In fiscal year 2022-2023, UC reported that 6,604 students received housing assistance through its basic needs program.
Andrea Mora, director of UC Irvine’s basic needs center, was part of the launch of the center that now offers more than 11 different types of supports to students.
Some of the services offered for students at UC Irvine are: one month of temporary housing with a meal plan through school housing, social workers, short-term transportation support, food and toiletries, and emergency funds.
The second month they opened the center, Mora served almost 90 students a day.
Nine years later, Mora serves at least 200 students.
“Everything costs more now due to inflation, such as the cost of housing and the cost of groceries,” said the director. “Everything has increased so that has obviously produced a greater demand for our services.”
According to Mora, this year they were able to provide at least 40 beds for students and they hope to continue increasing the number of available spaces.
“The difficulty is always that there is more need than can be covered,” he explained. “For example, if we focus on the housing problem… one of the big problems that students have is finding affordable housing in the community where we are.”
The director added that sometimes students with food or housing insecurity do not ask for help because they do not believe they are eligible or that the basic needs center provides that type of support.
For her, part of the job is sharing information with professors, students and other university workers in order to help the university students most in need.
“We see our programs as a part of student retention and also, to help them meet those goals so that they can escape poverty,” Mora said.
Student Berrios says she feels very grateful for the support she received from the government during her time in the foster system, but feels there is something more that needs to be done.
“I would like to see more benefits and more subsidies because it is not easy. [sin el apoyo que recibí con la vivienda] “I would have been homeless because the only money I would have had was from my job at Cerritos College,” said the young woman.
“It should be a little more because sometimes we don’t have our parents, you’re alone and the only person you have is yourself.”
In the future, she plans to finish her degree in communications; her goal is to work on disseminating support programs for other students who have gone through the same thing as her.
“Many people think that we are sad and that our lives are really miserable,” Berrios explained. “And yes, the moments I have had were very sad, but that is not my identity.”
More than anything, the young woman wants other people to see her resilience and effort to get ahead. She asks that insecure young people receive the support they really deserve.