The Student Homeless Alliance walked away from Tuesday’s meeting with San Jose State President Mary Papazian empty-handed.
After convening at sociology professor and alliance adviser Scott Myers-Lipton’s office, the group reaffirmed its position on the three demands to bring forth to Papazian.
None of the group’s demands, which included parking spaces in the 7th Street Garage, 12 beds in the dorms available to homeless students for 60 days and a one-time $2,500 emergency grant, were met.
“I am disappointed to report that they have rejected our demands,” Student Homeless Alliance president Mayra Bernabe said. “However, they have committed to house every student.”
Though more than 1,100 students signed the alliance’s petition to Papazian, only 14 people participated in the call-in to Papazian’s office since the Monday news conference, according to SJSU media relations specialist Robin McElhatton.
During Tuesday’s meeting, university officials committed to finding housing for every student.
“We expressed, inside with the students, a commitment to finding a safe solution for every student in need,” Papazian said. “That’s our commitment.”
Vice president of student affairs Patrick Day, who also attended the meeting, said he wanted students struggling with housing to reach out to SJSU Cares.
SJSU Cares is the resource center on campus to guide students facing homelessness or food insecurity toward resources that can help them.
“We can’t say it’ll be this or this, but we want every student to get into SJSU Cares, to connect, so we can figure out what those individual needs are,” Day said.
The administration said during the meeting that only 10 students had used
SJSU Cares, Saline Chandler, a sociology senior and member of the Student Homeless Alliance said.
Chandler added that most students don’t know about SJSU Cares. She suggested that fulfilling the alliance’s demand of parking spaces could have helped with that effort.
“If everyone knew there is a safe parking garage, we can outreach to students while they’re utilizing the resource,” Chandler said.
Chandler also said that the university was trying to minimize the problem of student homelessness.
“One of the first things the president said was that she does not know the number of people facing homelessness,” she said.
Chandler said Papazian had to already be aware of the California State University Basic Needs Study that was published in January 2018. The study, commissioned by the CSU Chancellor’s office, found that 13.6 percent of SJSU students reported being homeless at least once in the prior 12 months.
Day was hopeful that by having students get involved with SJSU Cares, the university would be better informed about how many students need help.
“Part of the challenge is even knowing what kind of numbers we’re talking about,” Day said. “So that’s why we want to get students connected to the resources, so then we can say ‘Oh jeez, this number is going up from last year, and we need to figure out how to build more resources.’ ”
The Spartan Daily requested statistics on the current usage of SJSU Cares from the university media relations department but has not yet received the figures.
Myers-Lipton said he was unsure whether students would be willing to share their status with SJSU Cares.
He said that just before the meeting, a student told him that they were homeless for a few days and were not able to turn a paper in on time as a result.
“Why would [students] go to a website and say they’re homeless?” Myers-Lipton said, after explaining that students were already hesitant to tell professors about their status.
Vice president Day invited formerly homeless students to meet with him, to better understand their specific needs. Chandler, a former homeless student, said she planned to meet with Day and continue to advocate for resources for homeless students.
Day said that he will be continuing to work on the SJSU Cares program, as well as looking into issues related to commuter students, like finding spaces for them to stay late or come early.
“We’re going to certainly look at our assessment practices to see if there are ways we can improve them, so that the process is better for students,” Day said.
Having Papazian in the meeting made an impact, Chandler said. She credited the president with helping facilitate the meeting.
“We had a really good discussion, some good ideas came out and we’re really hoping we can connect students in need to SJSU Cares,” said Papazian.
But Chandler said the administration merely “beat[ed] around the bush” instead of addressing the problem. “We need immediate solutions,” she said.
Myers-Lipton called upon the civic and business leaders to get involved and help students in need.
“This is a human crisis,” Myers-Lipton said. “Every semester I’ve been here, for the past three years, I’ve had several of my students come to me and tell me they’re homeless.”
