About a year ago I was finishing my first year at California State University, Northridge which also marked a year of being unhoused and living out of an RV.

My name is Miguel Gonzalez, I am a senior at CSUN majoring in journalism with a minor in Spanish-language journalism. My first year at CSUN I was working full-time, a full-time student and unhoused.

In February, I sat listening to a panel of homeless activists not knowing that the people on the panel would inspire me to share my story. I was brought to tears when they shared their experiences of being unhoused. When they spoke of being in constant darkness, I saw myself trying to study in a dark RV with no electricity. They spoke about going hungry as I recalled how many times my stomach growled at night. Their worries of being harassed by police or neighbors was a constant worry I had. I was them except I wasn’t as brave, not yet at least.

One of the things that stuck to me was the vocabulary being used. The way homeless people are addressed needs to be changed, the word homeless carries negative weight. We tend to look at people who identify as homeless in a bad way but we know nothing about them or how they got there. The term that was being used in the panel instead was unhoused, which was a new term to me and just hearing that instead of homeless made me feel better.

I wasn’t less.

I did have a home, my family was my home. My dreams for the future, the friends I made, the things I learned, the professors that helped me, the music, the long walks, everything I experienced was part of my home. Home was me and wherever I went. I was unhoused, not homeless.

According to Cal Matters, homelessness affects 11% of CSU students.

Many college students worry about housing and transportation. CA Assembly Bill 1314 is a bill that, if passed, will allow the Cal Grant to cover the cost of housing, transportation, and school supplies. This is big for students struggling with being unhoused. I know it would’ve made my school experience less stressful.

Dorming was too expensive and it would be a four hour daily commute at the time so I had to figure out something before the semester started. Then a close friend of mine offered his RV to live out of while in school, it was my best option so I took it.

My reason for sharing my story is because I am out of that living situation now but I know there are many others still in that situation. There are students living out of their cars, couch surfing, sleeping on park benches or in empty rooms. One of the hardest things to do is tell others about your living situation, nobody wants to go around saying they’re unhoused. It's a tough, draining and at times aspirit-crushing situation to be in. Physically being tired has you mentally checked out which leaves you emotionally drained.

Being alone a lot makes you retract as a person. Physically being alone has you developing a type of survival way of thinking where only you can help yourself. So you don’t tell anybody about your living situation because only you can help you.

Hide and Seek

Once after a study session a friend asked me if I needed a ride home and I told him it wasn’t necessary because I was going to the library to finish studying. It was ten at night and the library wouldn’t be open much longer. All I wanted was to go home and rest but I couldn’t tell him to drop me off and expose where I was living. Plus I wasn’t going to rest, I was going to stay up until sleepiness beat paranoia. I would force myself to be in the library studying until it closed or I was tired enough to fall asleep.

You don’t tell anybody how paranoid you have become because only you get startled. Every time before leaving the RV I would look through the windows to see if anyone was outside or passing so that nobody would see me coming out. Every night walking back, I’d constantly look over my shoulder so that nobody would see me going inside.

You don’t tell anybody how dark it is out there because only you have night vision goggles. People see a junkie not a student. They see a nuisance not a person trying to better himself. If you’re lucky enough they won’t see you at all and leave you alone.

When they do see you it is only to show you signs that you can’t park there, it is to give you a citation, it is to leave notes on your window telling you to leave, when they see you it is to make sure they never see you again.

Can I park there?

Parking near a residential area gives you the security that not many people pass by because it isn’t a busy area but you run the chance of getting harassed by neighbors. Parking in a main street gives you a sense of security that neighboring stores have cameras but the RV runs the risk of getting damaged in multiple ways, plus there is the risk of a larger public exposure. So it becomes a matter of which bad parking spot will I get today.

I remember leaving for work at 6:00 a.m. when I see this newly posted sign prohibiting me from overnight parking. Signs like these were beginning to be put up in the usual spots where I would park. I worked with this worry in my head, in class all I could think of was where am I going to go because by the end of the day I had to find a new street to call home.

Parking on a main street like Sepulveda increases the chances of somebody breaking in or being in a car accident. Every night I’d hope nothing bad happened and that I slept undisturbed. One of my biggest fears was being asleep and a car crashing into the RV. Somebody did crash into the RV once but thankfully I was not inside.

The RV had a leak so on rainy days parking was even more troubling because I had to find a bridge to park under. A bridge is my umbrella. Except that besides finding out if this umbrella works for me I also have to make sure parking signs allow me to stay under the umbrella, the neighboring community approving of my umbrella, not being fined for using this umbrella and worrying if this umbrella is safe to use.

When I heard about safe parking it was already too late I was no longer unhoused. Safe parking provides people living out of their cars a safe and legal place to park and sleep at night.. For students living out of their car having a safe place to park is a huge stress reliever and help. Assembly Bill 302 would allow students at community colleges to use campus parking lots overnight.

The fear of somebody breaking in made me develop a routine before going to bed where I set up boobie traps. The traps were meant to make noise loud enough to hopefully wake me up in case of an intruder. I’d set books by the window so nobody is able to slide it open and put objects on the floor that if stepped on would squeak and block the door with my bike. The bad part about setting these traps was they could possibly work against me if ever I needed to exit quickly, like if a fire were to happen.

Express Yourself

The first time I ever expressed how I was feeling was to my partner at the time, we were leaving her house and I was going back to my RV. I started crying, it wasn’t because I was sad I was just tired. I never really tried bothering anyone with my problems so I kept a journal in which I wrote that night:

“Seeing them able to rest at ease with no worry of time, knowing they have a home to stay at struck something in me. I didn’t have what they had, I wasn’t able to just say I'm going home. Instead I had to wait go to my RV so that I can get some "rest". I quote it because I knew once I got to the RV there would be no rest. I would put my things away quietly, set up my boobie traps I lay around the RV in case of an intruder and then turn off the small lamp. I would lay in the bed hearing cars pass, sirens in the distance and the cracks the old dusty RV would make. All these noises came together to heighten my paranoia which would lead to insomnia. The causes of my staying up at night were not like other college students. It wasn’t studying or partying that kept me up, it was fear. Fear of the noises, fear that anything outside startled me, that something could happen. I would hear cars drive by hoping they kept passing by. From inside the hollow RV everything sounds loud and close so I wouldn’t open the blinds to see if in fact they were close I would lay there hoping for the best.”

In the Latino community there is a stigma about mental health where we don’t talk about it or feelings at all. So keeping things to myself was the norm until one day last semester, I went to see a professor for office hours. She asked how I was and it broke me down. I began letting everything out, that I was tired, scared and feeling uncertain. It was concerning how unmotivated I was becoming how I was seeing the real me slip away. Having lived in that situation took a toll on me, I bottled it all in for a year until I couldn’t.

My professor told me CSUN has counseling services for students, which I didn’t even know about. I never thought to step foot in a place like that but really glad I did. They helped me understand that it's okay to be tired and to give myself credit for having lived like that for a whole year. I set up follow up appointments but never went back.

According to Active Minds, a nonprofit organization, 39% of college students experience an important mental health issue. Being able to talk to a counselor really helped me a lot. Being unhoused is not just not having a safe place to live in, it's fighting every day to be mentally healthy.

Use What You’ve Got

Being able to sleep at peace would’ve done wonders for my health overall. Sleep is important, especially when you’re taking five classes and working full-time. Being able to sleep comfortably is something I will never take for granted again.

On a good day I would get six hours of sleep but there were times when I only got two or three hours of sleep. Any little noise wakes you up and every car that passes by shakes the RV. I would visit the

Oasis Center on campus because they had these nap pods where students can take a break and nap for like an hour. Most mornings I’d book a nap pod so I can sleep comfortably before starting the day.

Before going to the Oasis Center I would go to the Student Recreation Center to shower, brush my teeth and use the restroom. I did work out a bit but that wasn’t my main purpose for using the SRC.

Whenever I was able to I would visit the Food Pantry on campus which gave out bags filled with canned goods or just basic things like a toothbrush. Food insecurity wasn’t my first issue but according to a survey done by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, about 33% of students at a four-year institution suffer from food insecurity.

I was lucky that the restaurant I worked at would give us free meals. In the RV I had a cooler, at the start of every week I would buy a gallon of milk, sandwich ingredients for a week and a box of granola bars. That was my meal most days until I went to work where I would eat on my break. Maintaining the food fresh without electricity was a hassle. Every night before leaving work I would take a bag of ice and take it back with me to keep the cooler cool. My coworkers would ask if the ice was to keep the beers cold and I would say yes. I’d rather them think the ice was for drinking than them knowing it was because I was living out of an RV and didn’t have a fridge.

All 23 CSU campuses have a food pantry or food distribution program and can help students with CalFresh Applications, a nutrition assistance program that helps students with food needs. CSUN is one of the nine campuses that accepts EBT. Housing is another area where all CSU campuses offer help via on-campus emergency housing or vouchers for off-campus housing. To see what other resources CSU’s offer visit the CSU website where you can find you find your campus and their list of resources.

At CSUN specifically there is CSUN With a Heart, an online site that has resources for students regarding basic needs. There is the MataCare Emergency Grant which helps students with unexpected financial needs, there is Temporary Housing which aims to help students with housing insecurities, resources for women and children along with food resources.

All these resources at the different campuses are great to have but it is also important to let students know they are out there. As students we should be looking for these resources but the school has the job of letting their students know what is available for them.

One of my professors helped me take advantage of scholarships, as he encouraged me to apply when I told him about my situation. I applied and won two scholarships. FAFSA covered tuition and supplies. When I got the scholarships it was the first time I ever won any, I was stoked. I was stoked that my mother would be proud, I was stoked there would be some stress released but I was mostly stoked that I was being recognized.

Thank you Profe, you were one of the first ones I told and really guided me academically and personally.

Academically I was doing well, B’s and A’s were my usual grade for that year. It had to do with the fact that I was on campus all the time, it's not like I loved spending time on campus but I had to be there. I’d rather be on campus than in the RV. When I wasn’t working I was on campus even if I didn’t have class.

I was doing great academically but I was mentally and emotionally drained. Being unhoused is not only not having a place, but also not having someone to talk to at the end of a long day. It can be not knowing what new Netflix series others are talking about because you save your phone battery as much as you can until you can charge it at school or work so you only use it when needed. It is being pushed to a place only you understand and can drag yourself out of.

Don’t Stop

It took a panel, a few professors and valuing what I went through to be able to talk openly. It isn’t easy to say you're unhoused so I do it to show these situations are real. I survived that living condition but there are still students who are in the situation I was in or worse. My story is for them more than me. I know it is hard, you are not alone, there is help out there and you will overcome this, don't give up.

My mom raised four boys all on her own and never gave up. She showed me to never give up, every day she would check up on me and prayed for me every night. Not giving up was for her more than for myself.

My first year at CSUN I was unhoused, now I’m graduating.