With COVID-19 impacting everyone differently, the Basic Needs Department at Long Beach City College has geared its efforts by helping students with their most pressing day-to-day issues, offering free groceries and bus passes, along with key housing assistance resources.
Located on the Liberal Arts Campus, building E-131, known as the Viking Vault, the Basic Needs Department provides resources to any LBCC student who is experiencing difficulty meeting their basic needs in the areas of food, housing, transportation and more.
“We have a holistic framework of basic needs which is circular. We understand that our basic needs are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, all happening at the same time,” Basic Needs department manager Justin Mendez said.
“COVID helped us, as basic needs practitioners,” Mendez said. “In the past, students weren’t walking around with a sign saying ‘I need support with housing.’ COVID facilitated us as an institution to create tools, like the Emergency Aid application. Outreach tools and access points were increased through COVID.”
Housing aid and rental assistance is a flagship of the Basic Needs Department, with students able to work with a specialist to rapidly rehouse and park in a safe location if they are living in their vehicle or get a one time rent check up to $2000 for past due bills.
“Just this semester we have 800 students asking for housing support. Food requests have just passed housing but probably by the end of the semester that may swap again,” Mendez said.
Nicole Swayne, an outreach and recruitment specialist, explained that “When a student is experiencing housing insecurity or at chronic risk of homelessness, they can email basicneeds@lbcc.edu to tell us their situation to collect information, communicate with the housing partner (program) and then we’re able to connect the two.”
“We have everything from rapid rehousing to bridge housing. Our services can either be immediate, like a hotel voucher, or housing navigation for students who are already working and just need a stable situation,” Swayne said.
There are some requirements for different housing programs, like the number of registered class units, but the outreach specialists can work with students to find the best fit for their needs.
The Viking Vault on LAC and its partner food pantry on the Pacific Coast Campus in QQ-107 gives students with one credit or more the opportunity to grab a bag of whatever groceries are available as often as they may need.
This includes students like LaJune Elder, who said “I use (Viking Vault) all the time for groceries and things I can’t afford at the regular grocery store. It definitely helps with the grocery bills.”
“I’m very thankful. Very grateful,” Elder said.
Along with access to food and housing assistance, Basic Needs offers things like free bus passes and gas cards to give students the ability to get to and from class or work.
“We have step by step guidance to help students get their bus pass that covers so many public transit agencies, ” Outreach and Recruitment Specialist Brianna Chavez said. “Yeah we might just be a food pantry but students don’t realize ‘Hey, do you need a gas card? Do you need help with transportation?’ so not everyone may know what we truly can offer.”
For the basic needs practitioners of the department, there is always more work that can be done and more students who might be helped by the resources they offer.
“Although we are serving two to three hundred students at least a month, I still believe we are under-utilized,” Mendez argues, “I want our resources to go. We know the need is there. We know a lot of our students are coming from low income families.”
But students do seem to be discovering what opportunities are available in the Basic Needs portfolio.
“We have a good steady flow of students,” Mendez said, “and it feels like every day, if not every week, we have students saying ‘Hey, it’s my first time here.’ ”
The demographics of students seeking help aren’t simply black and white either, with a wide range of people looking for help, including a large number of non-traditional students over 25 years old and parent-students.
Systemic inequality impacting particular segments of the population is clear though. “What research is continuing to prove is that there is a disproportionate basic needs insecurity for students of color, males and South East Asian students, who sometimes are shown to have a higher rate of basic needs insecurity than Latinx students,” Mendez explains.
But the variety of students looking for ways to overcome their basic need shortfalls is a testament to the diversity of LBCC and Long Beach as a whole.
“In our experience, and I attribute this to the diversity of LBCC, we have everybody coming into Basic Needs. It’s a beautiful thing to see the diversity of the population we are serving. On an average day in the Viking Vault, you will see all sorts of people,” Mendez argues.
The Basic Needs Department can be contacted in person at the Viking Vault at LAC or its equivalent location at PCC, through email at basicneeds@lbcc.edu or on the department’s dedicated Basic Needs Canvas page.