It was weeks into the pandemic when Long Beach City College student Jonathan Ramirez found himself living in his car after he suddenly became homeless.
Ramirez, 28, had been driving for Uber, and business had drastically slowed as the state went into lockdown in March.
A week before rent was due, his roommate abruptly moved out of the converted garage the two shared in Los Angeles.
For the next six months, Ramirez would spend most of his time in his car, occasionally staying in his mother’s one-bedroom that she rented, or couch-surfing.
As the state remained in lockdown, Ramirez’s options were limited.
“I think I read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ like 10 times,” said Ramirez. He still keeps a copy of the book in his car.
While the state was in “Safer at Home,” Ramirez said that, “There really wasn’t anything to do. You get so bored of even being on your phone. I hate this phone so much, because like, I would be on it all the time.”
Ramirez said oftentimes he would just walk down the street, until eventually he’d have to turn back and return to his car.
“I would want to go out and run or work out or something. But then at the same time, it’s like, okay, if I go run and work out, I’m gonna get sweaty, and I can’t just hop in the shower whenever I want to.”
“It’s hard to explain the feelings of being confined to a car and being confined to very, very limited options during a pandemic,” he said.
“You wake up, and it’s like, I’m here again …every day, it’s like, here again, I’m here again, and I’m here again. You just kind of wonder, when the hell am I gonna wake up and it’s not in this damn car? … It was like a shelter, but kind of like a prison at the same time.”
Ramirez hadn’t had a stable living situation since he was 18, 10 years prior. After high school, he was recruited by Mexico’s national under-20 rugby team, but after returning to the U.S., he was greeted by a far different situation.
When he returned, his mother had moved to Wisconsin, leaving Ramirez to couch-surf and stay with friends.
Following his success abroad, Ramirez was recruited by a number of colleges, and he briefly attended school in Ohio.
Then, his uncle, who Ramirez considered to be his only father figure, passed away from colon cancer.
His uncle had covered the cost of the plane ticket for Ramirez to go to Mexico City when he was recruited at 18.
“That really got to me, and I kind of just didn’t do anything after that. I just basically shut myself out, I stopped going to class. And, you know, in hindsight, I regret it, because I know that he probably would have wanted me to continue in school and, you know, continue in my sport, because after that, I didn’t even play sports ever again.”
In the years following, Ramirez continued to spend time living with friends, couch-surfing, and then renting different rooms.
“It was never like a place of my own,” he said.
By the time the pandemic hit, Ramirez had already taken the spring semester off of school, but by the fall, he was ready to return.
“I felt like I just threw away a semester, which, that’s a long time. That’s a lot of things I could have knocked out,” he said.
After learning that he had been awarded a scholarship, he enrolled for the fall semester, then to realize he was without a computer, without Internet, and without housing.
Long Beach City College was able to provide him with a Chromebook, but internet access remained a challenge, and Ramirez was close to dropping his courses.
One professor even advised him to do so.
It was then that Ramirez got a call from the basic needs department at the college.
Ramirez was connected to the organization Jovenes, that helps to provide housing to students in need.
By the end of September, after around six months of living in his car, Ramirez was moved into a hotel for three days.
Finally with both a Chromebook and WiFi, he spent the entire three days successfully completing all of the school work he had missed.
That Sunday, he was taken to get a COVID-19 test, and Monday, he was moved into his current housing, a four-bedroom townhouse that he shares with three roommates.
Previously, Ramirez had been unable to receive any financial aid, due to an outstanding loan that he had from his time in Ohio, years before.
With the help of the basic needs program and Jovenes, the loan was paid off, and Ramirez is now able to receive financial aid.
He also received $1,400 to fix the faulty transmission in his car, his former shelter.
“I don’t have a bad head on my shoulders. I just, you know, I was given like a pretty, pretty (expletive) hand of cards.”
For Long Beach City College student Joshua Elliott, he was thrust into homelessness for a year after his grandmother, who he had lived with, moved away.
Elliott, 21, automotive tech major, maintained a full course load while working two jobs, all the meanwhile living in his truck.
He worked as a student assistant for the NextUp program for students at Long Beach City College formerly in the foster care system, and at a security job by night.
He would often park near the school to get WiFi to complete his school work, but his grades suffered.
“I think last semester was my first time I’ve ever been on academic probation. And so that’s what I noticed, I was dropping on, I fell a little bit off my path, and stuff like that.”
“I’m actually going to take a break on working at the school, so I’ve been focused more on the school itself, my schoolwork itself, because now I’m noticing, since I (was) homeless … I (was) focused on the job first, because you know I make money from that, and then the schoolwork second,” he said.
Elliott, who grew up in the foster care system, never intended on going to college.
After concerns that he was not going to be able to graduate from high school due to missing too much school, it was a bet with a guidance counselor that changed his path.
“If she could help me graduate high school, I would attend college,” he said.
“I actually graduated with a 4.0 and stuff. The problem was, I missed, I think 64, or some 67% of like school out of the whole four years total,” said Elliott.
In November, Elliott secured housing with a friend’s family. They had often allowed him to use their shower during his time living in his truck.
He said, “One thing I do like, is to have somewhere to sleep and rest my head without having to worry about an officer pulling up and telling me I can’t sleep here.”
“I had a lot of problems with the police, and like just people period, they’d call the police on me,” he said.
Elliott said he would tell the officer he was homeless and had nowhere to go, only to be told not to sleep in his car and to go to a shelter.
However with the pandemic, Elliott did not see that as an option.
“Usually I go every three months, I go back to my grandma, just to make sure her car is good. I don’t want to be going to places where there’s a lot of people, and I don’t want to catch COVID and then have to go all the way over there. She’s 77 years old,” he said.
His grandmother was somewhat aware of his situation as well, but Elliott did not tell her details as to not worry her. “I was more concerned (about) making sure she had a place than before I have one. I’m kind of like a grandma’s boy, so I want to make sure she was good there, before me.”
Elliott is one of 12 siblings, but he did not want to reach out for help from them either.
“I’m big on family, so usually I’ll help out my family before I help, or I usually help out people before I help myself out. I helped my sister get a place in Arizona and stuff like that, and I’m very close to my siblings. I just don’t like bothering, or owing people favors,” said Elliott.
This semester, 1,450 students at Long Beach City College requested housing support, according to Basic Needs Coordinator Justin Mendez.
He estimated that 70 of those would be considered homeless, sleeping in a car, a shelter, or couch-surfing.
There are racial disparities for students who experience homelessness, with African American males experiencing the highest percentage, and Latino males following, said Mendez.
Across California, 151,278 people were homeless in 2019, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Community college students are impacted by homelessness to a different extent than at four-year schools, partially due to a lack of dorms or on-campus housing, creating more of a reliance on community support, said to Mendez.
“We have a really big housing feasibility study that’s going on right now. We have a research group that’s been conducting focus groups with our students to learn about what is the student experience and the need and the perspective about bringing housing to LBCC, that’s in the works,” said Mendez.
Basic Needs offers community referrals to housing agencies that provide direct housing for students experiencing homelessness, such as Ramirez.
Jovenes, the agency that provided Ramirez with his current housing, has provided bridge housing to eight Long Beach City College students so far.
“Their goal is to, you know, help the students receive income, so they can be financially independent and stable on their own,” Mendez said.
The transitional housing program has been active since 2015, and partners with six colleges and universities in the region.
Jovenes officially partnered with the college in August. Students need to have completed nine units, and currently be enrolled in nine to qualify for support.
The school still extends support to students who do not meet these requirements, referred to additional community resources, such as Helping Homeless Student Associate Group.
According to Mendez, Long Beach City College has worked to support the variety of housing difficulties students could be experiencing, from being literally homeless, to students who are at risk of homelessness or in an unsafe environment.
“In California, we have some of the highest housing costs in the nation, and then when you bring it down to Southern California and Long Beach specifically, housing costs are ridiculous. Our community college serves a large population from low income communities. A single bedroom could be over $1,400.”
“And when you add the current situation of the pandemic, where so many students are struggling to find employment, and having a steady income is so connected with homelessness. If students can’t secure employment, then how can we expect them to secure housing too?” he said.
A lot of minimum-wage jobs that would usually provide income to students are no longer available or have been inconsistent amid the pandemic, such as retail or restaurant jobs.
As of September, the unemployment rate in California was at 11.0%, up from 3.9% in September in 2019.
To combat this, the basic needs department also attempts to connect students with career and employment services.
“I think for our students who experience homelessness specifically … I admire the resiliency and how persistent so many students are, and continuing to pursue their educational goals,” Mendez said.
For Elliott, who has been in his new housing situation for only a couple of weeks, it has been an adjustment so far.
“It’s kind of a weird, a different type of feeling because my body adjusted to staying in a truck,” he said.
In his truck, he would be woken early every morning by the sun.
“I can sleep in a little longer and stuff like that,” he said.
“My body’s trying to get used to the bed instead of a hard surface … Now I have a stable place to use the restroom when I want to wake up and use the restroom. I think that was like my biggest thing I had, like, I never missed a toilet that bad in my life.”
Elliott did not tell anyone at Long Beach City College about his situation until September.
“I’m a little stubborn. I’m old school, I want to … you know, try to do things myself as best as I can and. So, I felt like before, like asking for help was weak in a way … I didn’t want to go ask somebody for help, and like owe somebody a favor.”
Elliott is hoping to be able to complete his associate’s and transfer within a year. He wants to earn his bachelor’s in business for automotive technology..
Ramirez is studying nursing, hoping to be able to transfer into a nursing program next year.
“I’ve always wanted to help, like, I’ve always been someone that likes to help others. Like, even when I can’t help myself, I still would want to help others,” he said.
Nowadays, Ramirez said he has enjoyed cooking and utilizing his kitchen, after months of relying primarily on fast food.
“I was always the guy that would, some Saturday mornings, I would make breakfast for everybody. And I just, I enjoyed the kitchen. And now that we have a kitchen … I enjoy cooking so much. And I cook every single day. I’m getting way better at it too,” said Ramirez.
“Now that I’ve moved in here, I can’t remember the last time I bought chips, or candy or anything like that … And that has been my goal lately, was just to cook and eat and work out. And I’m like, how many times like I tell myself, days where I’m lazy, like at home, I’m just laying in bed watching ‘Game of Thrones’ or something- I’m like, how many times did I tell myself when I was in my car, like, I wish I could work out, I wish I could go run. I was in a position where I’m like, dude, put your running shoes on go run, you know. So now that I can do that, I’ve been doing that.”
Ramirez has even returned to rugby, a sport he hasn’t played in six years.
“I’m like driving, and like, the whole time it feels like a first date or something because I have like, butterflies and my heart is kind of beating like, out of my chest, and my hands are getting sweaty,” said Ramirez of his first day back on the field.
“I legitimately cried of happiness,” said Ramirez.
“I go every Saturday now and I practice with some of the Cal State Long Beach guys and some Belmont Shore rugby guys. And it’s like, I wanted to legit scream from happiness on the field. It’s like, man, these people don’t know my journey to getting back to playing and for me, it was such a huge deal to getting back on a field, and like playing and having a ball in my hand, and it was liberating.”
“That alone was like, so good for my spirit and my soul. Like, it was just so like, I don’t know how to explain it. It was just so refreshing. Like, for my mental health.”
“It was just like, telling me like, ‘Dude, you just lost your way. You know? You had some bad luck but you’re there. That you’re still who you are, or who you were, that’s you, like it’s always been you, it’s just bad luck.’ And that’s really it.”
To access Basic Needs support from Long Beach City College, visit www.tinyurl.com/vikingvault.
For students in need of housing, email basicneeds@lbcc.edu.
For students in need of groceries, the drive-thru Viking Vault at Liberal Arts Campus is open every other Tuesday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., with a school ID or proof of registration, or by appointment every Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Although Long Beach Transit is currently not charging, the college also provides free bus passes for students enrolled in 12 units and in good academic standing, that can automatically be accessed through the Viking portal, however the school can attempt to assist students who do not meet these requirements.
For mental health assistance, mental health clinicians are available to meet with students by appointment.