Long Beach City College officials have agreed upon the Pilot Safe Program for housing insecure students, allowing 15 selected students to remain inside their vehicles overnight in a secured campus location at the Pacific Coast Campus parking structure.
According to Interim-Superintendent President Mike Muñoz, these selected students must be in keeping with the requirements set forth by the program.
“There is a minimum number of units they have to be enrolled in and there’s also a minimum GPA, so they have to be in good standing. They have to have no dependents or spouses with them, and they need proof of insurance with a valid registration,” Muñoz said.
Students are assessed individually in order to determine what services or models would best match their needs through LBCC’s Basic Needs Program.
“Through our emergency student aid application, students who disclosed that they were housing insecure are managed through our office of basic needs,” Muñoz said.
“There is usually an individual intake process, and you know these types of supports and services are not a one size fits all …but through the office of basic needs they assess each individual to determine what services or models would best match with that students needs,” he added, on how students were selected for the Pilot Safe Program.
Students identified as fitting the criteria for the program are allowed to stay in the secured PCC parking lot structure for seven nights a week, between the hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. They will also have access to restroom facilities and Wi-Fi services throughout the night.
Additionally, they will be given access to the PCC shower facilities between the hours of 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. daily.
Justin Mendez, the Pilot Safe Program director, was unavailable following multiple attempts for an interview set-up.
According to the college press release, the Pilot Safe Program is currently the only known program of its kind within the region for a community college. The program was created to help address the needs of LBCC’s unhoused students and provide a safe space for them to sleep in their cars overnight.
In the press release, Muñoz highlighted that 70 or more LBCC students are currently experiencing houselessness.
Muñoz believes the key to success for students experiencing houselessness is providing them with a safe place to remove the barriers which impact their responsibilities as students.
The Pilot Safe Program has hired security outside of the Long Beach police department to watch the students overnight and maintain safety protocols.
“We’ve partnered with Safe Parking LA to help design the model, and hired security to support securing the parking structure for the program,” Muñoz said. “The design is based around models of other cities and churches or nonprofits that have a safe parking program, so we are looking at their best practices and aligning our program in that way,”
“Keep in mind that the reason we selected PCC in contrast to LAC, is that the PCC structure can be fully secured, so once the students arrive and they park, they secure the structure so that no one can just walk up on them,” Muñoz said, regarding the program’s decision on where the students would be staying overnight.
Muñoz later discussed the possibility of the program’s continuation for future semesters at LBCC, once the data could be examined based on the program’s current success.
“We want to make sure that we learn all our lessons through the pilot (program), so I don’t want to officially go on the record and say that it will be… in the absence of going through our process and reviewing the data to ensure that’s the right thing to do,” Muñoz said.