After more than two years, San Jose State’s Student Homeless Alliance continues to ask for collaboration with the university to house homeless students.
Members of the alliance said they are asking the university administration for more “transparency and cooperation” to follow through with the promises established in a Dec. 3, 2019 agreement between SJSU and the alliance.
Student Homeless Alliance, or SHA, is a Student-led organization focused on creative solutions to homelessness and raising awareness of the homeless SJSU student population, according to the organization's Instagram page.
Agreement
The SJSU SHA agreement is made of 5 recommendations: establish an advisory board for basic needs, enhance SJSU Cares program, broaden the communications and marketing plan for SJSU Cares, pilot an emergency beds program funded by the county, and address the remaining issues in collaboration with students leaders and the administration.
SJSU Cares
SJSU Cares, a division of student affairs that assists students facing an unforeseen economic crisis by providing basic need assistance, conducted a “basic needs survey” in Spring 2021, according to its website.
The survey concluded 11% of SJSU students, or close to 4,000 students, experience homelessness, defined in the survey as “sleeping in a location not meant for human habitation or that is not permanent” for at least a day.
The survey was based on 5680 students' responses. It also found that about 41% of students have lived with housing insecurity, which includes “affordability, accessibility and safety of their habitation.”
According to data collected by SJSU Cares for the fall semester, SJSU provided 12 students a total of 176 days of temporary emergency housing through University Housing Services, hotel vouchers and the emergency bed pilot program.
The emergency bed pilot program includes 12 beds, required as a minimum in the 2019 Student Homeless Alliance agreement with SJSU. Only one is being actively used, according to SJSU Cares website.
Sammi Shinagawa, creative writing senior and member of SHA, expressed concerns about the program.
“[It] seems like such a waste of our fight to get 12 that emergency pilot program regardless,” Shinagawa said. “Why are the beds there if they're not being used?”
She said students who tried to access this program allegedly reported to SHA members that SJSU Cares was asking students to maximize their loans.
“When students are coming forth . . . clearly at a vulnerable point in their college careers and in their lives, they need to be embraced with open arms to the services and the help they need instead of this discouraging environment,” Shinagawa said.
Anthony Majano, sociology junior and president of SHA said SJSU Interim President Steve Perez allegedly told SHA members at a Feb. 17 meeting that students were not asked for loans until four weeks, but didn’t give any written statement yet.
“We would like for this to be in writing so that students can … clearly point to that that’s what they need, that’s what they deserve, that’s what they’re entitled to,” Majano said.
Kenneth Mashinchi, SJSU senior director of strategic communications and media relations, said in an email that students do not have to take out a loan or maximize existing loans to receive temporary emergency housing, but didn’t specify for how long until students are asked to maximize loans.
Mashinchi said the university’s goal is to provide “resources necessary for students to complete their degrees.”
“Our goal is to assist students and help provide the resources necessary for students to complete their degrees,” he said. “The university works continually to improve and expand resources and services for students facing housing insecurity and food insecurity.”
One recommendation made by SHA to the administration in the Dec. 3, 2019 agreement was to improve SJSU Cares “communication and accessibility.”
Majano said he believes the university should make resources more accessible to students in need.
“There is a bit more being done about [SJSU Cares] awareness, [but] just isn’t as much as we’d like,” Majano said.
Mashinchi said an awareness campaign was launched in November 2021 “so students in need know they can go to SJSU Cares to receive assistance.”
SJSU Cares officially opened a centralized office in Clark Hall Room 104 on Nov. 16th, 2021, Majano said.
The office is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Majano said SHA is working with Associated Students to market a video to inform students of basic need resources.
Mashinchi said SJSU Cares improved and redesigned its website making it more accessible and complete.
Shinagawa said she believes there are many things that need to be changed on the SJSU Cares website.
Shinagawa created a SHA website by herself, where she included SJSU resources and non-profit organizations contact information.
She said she didn’t insert the “Share Your Spartan Heart” campaign on the SHA website, because monetary investment shouldn’t be a student's responsibility.
The Share Your Spartan Heart Campaign is designed to inform about the university resources but also provide ways to financially support SJSU Cares services, according to a Nov. 8, 2021 statement from former SJSU President Mary A. Papazian statement.
Mashinchi said the university’s one-month long campaign started in November and raised $13,809 for SJSU Cares.
“Asking . . . the student population who's already spending thousands and thousands of dollars every year just to go to school, [it’s] asking for their help to donate for things that they should be providing,” Shinagawa said.
As asked in the 2019 agreement, an advisory board was created in April 2020, late to its scheduled date, former SHA President Lana Gomez said in a November 2021 interview.
Majano never assisted during an advisory board meeting since he became president this semester but he said Gomez reported to him strained communication inside the advisory board.
“It was like the administration was speaking down to these students and those involved, rather than . . . an egalitarian platform where everyone can share ideas equally heard,” Majano said. Mashinchi said the university is working on a redesigned Basic Needs Advisory Committee to emphasize student engagement in service development.
“I hope when it does come back, it’d be much more egalitarian and that our ideas as students, as community members will be heard much more than before,” Majano said.
Shinagawa said while trying to assist homeless students, the alliance is not working against the university administration.
“The Student Homeless Alliance is more than willing to work with the administration to meet these goals, that was the whole point of the SJSU agreement,” she said.
