Leo

UC Berkeley Class of 2019

African American Studies

 

“It’s a difficult process like my GPA definitely dropped this semester and I just wonder what would happen if I didn’t have some of these financial problems.”  

 

Leo, a 2018 UC Berkeley junior, has dealt with many occasions of not knowing where to sleep and having to make long commutes just to get to campus. Many times, these commutes take at least two hours, which eventually cuts into the time that he spends doing work for classes.

 

He moved out of his campus dorm after freshman year and currently lives in Richmond, California for a rent of $525 for a single room compared to $1,620 for a double in the UC Berkeley dorms. To him, it made more financial sense to find a place with a lower cost in order to accommodate the financial hardships that he faces, even though it means living out of the Berkeley area.

 

As a result, he found himself doing much of his work on the bus. Leo worked 16 hours a day per week with a two hour commute each way from Richmond to Berkeley everyday. This ultimately affected the amount of time he got to have to complete classwork and to study.

 

Leo has been housing insecure for 9 months, which is essentially two semesters affected by not knowing where to live. He has stayed in 8 different places over the course of 11 months, and these places range from the laundromats to the floor of his father’s old place, even going to the extent of couch surfing for many occasions.

 

During his freshman year, Leo and his family messed up on the FAFSA because he was a first-generation student, so as a result, he did not receive much financial assistance. He worked two jobs over the summer that allowed him to have a place to stay during his freshman year, however he had to work 50 hours a week just to stay in the double. He could not find other housing opportunities in time due to how busy he was with work. Leo has experienced multiple accounts of housing discrimination.

 

He has been to 10 open houses that he can pay for since he saved money from his summer job, however most of these options would not accept his money since the competition was high with adults and grad students for these specific locations. Because Leo had the money but did not make three times the amount of income necessary, he lost many of these housing opportunities to individuals with more money. This made the housing situation impossible for students unless they had parents who could help pay. The only person paying for him was his mother, which made it tough to prove himself as a good candidate for the housing option due to the lack of additional money available. As a result, he would go to many open houses in search of a place to stay, but continuously end up being denied.