Sustainability: Community College Course Offers Housing Solution for Families in Need in California

This brief case study outlines the process of developing and implementing an inexpensive community college course curriculum that could be used just about anywhere for outreach to families on the edge:

We have found ourselves with an unfortunate confluence involving a community that has traditionally put a low premium on education, industries that have outgrown their labor force, and a region that is so stunningly beautiful that people would rather live here in poverty than move to urban areas where there are more jobs. For many, this place has been their home for generations, and they intend to stay.

Our poverty carries the same consequences that exist wherever there is poverty: substance abuse, domestic violence, health problems, substandard housing, child neglect, and a loss of hope. No community college can cure these problems, but every community college serving an impoverished community has the obligation to boldly address them. We took a run at the housing issues that were preventing students and potential students, most of them single mothers, from focusing on their studies.

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Minimal Costs, Life-Changing Benefits. We started with a budget of $600 for this program, anticipating that we would receive $300 in fees from students and spend perhaps twice that amount on instructor stipends and so forth. Thanks to the generosity of instructors who refused the stipend and to CRDN for not charging a facility rental fee, the entire first class cost $365, $210 of which was offset by registration fees. This is a program that can be easily replicated anywhere, including in communities without a community college partner.

The Lucky Ones Are on the Iceberg, Even as it Melts

We've linked to previous writing by Wick Sloane, who is "embedded" at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston with a modest fellowship to write about the finances and inequities in community colleges. He starts this essay by noting that he has just been asked by a publisher for a student's permission to publish his English essay in a textbook, but Sloane can no longer even locate his previous student.

We know the six million credit students now in community colleges have little chance of completing even an associate degree. Yet, community college is voluntary. These are individuals who, against the odds, choose education over extra food in the kitchen and who, often on top of 50- and 60-hour work schedules, choose to come to school and learn.

Here’s an e-mail from a student last week: “My 10 mo. old daughter is very sick and I have been at the hospital since last night. She will get monitored all day today to track her progress. I will email some assignments later today. Thanks in advance!” His daughter has meningitis. He did e-mail me the homework.

Causes need a visual. I can’t find one for community colleges. With the Wal-Marting of America, the students have perfectly normal clothes. Their pain and their wounds are of the soul.