California Community Colleges conference spotlights student housing, students urge campus-built dorms
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Summary
Speakers at a Building for Tomorrow conference at Orange Coast College framed student housing as a basic need, highlighted financing tools such as lease revenue bonds, and featured student testimony — including accounts of couch‑surfing and a student who lived in a car — prompting calls to build on-campus residential halls.
Ronnie Slim, director of affordable student housing at the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, opened the Building for Tomorrow conference at Orange Coast College, saying the gathering would focus on "student housing strategies, innovations, and practice" and thanking the host campus for serving as a model for other colleges.
Chancellor Sonia Christian, in a recorded message, framed housing as essential to student success, saying housing "is not a luxury. It's basic infrastructure like a classroom, a laboratory, or libraries," and highlighting statewide tools and partnerships — including lease revenue bonds — that are helping campuses finance affordable student housing as part of Vision 2030.
In a live keynote, Dr. Keith Curry, president of Compton College, described a range of student housing hardships and urged action. "The challenge of housing insecurity is one of the defining issues of our time," Curry said, and he praised campuses that have built housing as contributing to student completion and stability.
Students and campus organizers offered firsthand accounts. One student described two classmates who were couch‑surfing and recounted a peer who "actually [lived] in her car for about a year, year and a half, and she had to leave school. She's still not back in school." Student leaders said they had brought about 15–20 homeless students to campus leadership and credited that outreach with the opening of a campus food pantry.
Orange Coast College leaders said building residential halls is a stated goal backed by their board of trustees, and speakers urged colleges to treat housing planning as a long‑term campus priority that supports both recruitment and student retention. Attendees were told breakout sessions and intersegmental panels with UC and CSU partners would follow, aimed at sharing models, financing approaches and management practices.
No formal votes or policy decisions were recorded during the opening session; the conference proceeded to scheduled breakouts and workshops to discuss financing, partnerships and operational models for student housing.
