Laura

Part 1

This has been my major safe space. This is my home away from home, and a home away from the “home” that I had here. If you can find a place where you feel safe and you can find other students who relate to you, it’s more welcoming overall to come to school here with that type of resource. I was literally sitting here when I found out that I had a new place to stay, it’s like the end of the rainbow kind of thing.

I think every student has their own story besides student homelessness. With my experiences I wanted to make sure other students know that this is a place they can go to when they need help. I personally relate to some of the current conversations where students are mentioning that the university systems locally are not tending to the POC’s [persons of color] here and we’re facing the same issues like housing security plus facing discrimination because of our race and ethnicity, and the administration doesn’t really see the intersectionality with that. There’s plenty of opportunity for more conversations to improve the status of our current situation with housing.

Part 2

This picture replays the place where I had a conversation with my mentor, he asked me if I wanted to speak about my situation and everything that was going wrong. It was really heartwarming and I felt more connected to my work and to school because I’ve never really broken down in front a mentor or supervisor like that. That day we built trust. It was the day I was able to move forward from my situation and begin focusing on the work I was hoping to do on campus (with work and school).

If students can try to find someone they could speak to, someone they trust, it will help you understand that it’s okay to seek help. It doesn’t have to be an administrator or student, it could be anybody, but trust has a lot to do with it. Students need to be willing to open up which can be hard for many students.

I'm trying to find a way to let everyone know that it's okay to ... that everyone goes through struggles, everyone has issues, it's okay to speak about it. Maybe like a process of opening up, 'cause it's different for everybody, but also having, I don't know ... people like me who are not scared to talk about it, I would tell my story to make someone more comfortable to tell their story or just at least say a few things like okay yeah, I'm going through the same thing or something like that. I think it’s about building more of a culture within the student body ... or students involved in the conversation.

Part 3

This is the AS office in front of the building. This photo reflects my role as a student and the idea that anyone can struggle, but still be a member of AS. I feel like since we are the “student” government we experience things unlike the cabinet that works for HSU, so I feel there’s a better chance that we understand students more because we’re actually students. Representing the student body on housing insecurity versus representing the study body while struggling through it myself is a total different experience. It was like a whole new connection for me.

Anyone can experience it [being homeless] no matter what your position or role on campus, what school you go to, who you are, how much money your parents have, it doesn’t really matter. I hope our student body can begin to trust associated students more because there’s a lack of communication between AS and the entire student body or a misunderstanding about why AS is there and how they can help. This to me is about finding ways to utilize student government to support the most current issues and giving students a chance to be more open about those issues so we can work on them and have an influence among the upper administration and campus community as a whole.