Are Fresno City College students being evicted? Officials say no, but offer no details

A week after Fresno City College officials said state money for a program that helps at-risk students afford rent had dried up, state-level officials said half of the money to extend the program had already been distributed.

However, FCC and the governing district that oversees it would not comment on the status of the funding. Despite the assurance that students would not be evicted, the institutions refused to provide any details on the plan about how the money would be spent or their progress in accommodating students.

“This is mental abuse,” said Desiree Martinez, executive director of We Are NOT Invisible, a local non-profit that advocates for people who experience homelessness. “Do you know how many people in this program are having mental health issues? We have people with children! Do you know how much anxiety and panic disorder you caused in women, men and children?”

In late June, about 50 Fresno City College students in the Housing Opportunities Promote Education program, which subsidizes up to 70% of rent for students experiencing housing insecurity and provides counseling services, received an email informing them the rental assistance would last only until Aug. 31, by which time students would need to vacate from the current housing and find new places on their own.

The students interviewed by The Fresno Bee said they were given such short notice that they couldn’t find alternative housing, and they don’t have income or credit qualifications. HOPE was designed to provide up to 12 months of rental assistance, move-in deposits, and a variety of counseling services in mental health, academics, career, and budgeting to help students become desirable tenants and move toward permanent housing.

“Income has always been the biggest factor, I know that, and some places have waiting lists for a year or two,” said Curtis Tongate, a paralegal major student who had applied for a dozen apartments in the past month to no avail.

The program’s abrupt halt “reinforced the impression about homelessness” and the instability worsened some of his peers’ situation of “struggle with getting a job,” he said.

Once considered California’s most successful college student homeless support program, HOPE has helped house over 350 students in the past four years. It ended on June 30, because “it was a pilot program” and “the pilot funding ended,” said FCC spokesperson Cris Monahan-Bremer.

In reporting on the matter, The Bee discovered that the state had extended the pilot program with five-year funds and notified the 14 community colleges at the end of June. FCC is allocated $620,976 for the 2024-25 academic year. However, FCC still decided to close the program and hasn’t provided any reasons other than calling it a “pilot program.” It also said that the funding information is yet to be confirmed.

Last week, the State Chancellor’s Office, which oversees all community colleges in California, told The Bee half of the funds were distributed to the colleges and the other half will be released once colleges return a signed document confirming their participation.

“We enter the funds into our payment system in July and colleges can begin accessing a percentage of the funds in July/August,” said Melissa Villarin, communications specialist at the State Chancellor’s Office.

Robert Fuentes, a district trustee for the region where FCC is located, said students will not lose housing but he did not provide any specifics.

“The HOPE program has been discontinued; however, rental assistance for qualified students will continue,” he replied in an email. “The associated funding received from the state for the upcoming year will be administered through a different campus office.”

Fuentes did not provide details regarding any available rental assistance, as well as which campus office the funding was directed to. He referred The Bee to the district chancellor and FCC. The district board does not oversee campuses’ daily operations.

FCC and the district chancellor didn’t answer questions about the funding or the plans to maintain the assistance for students. FCC President Robert Pimentel said in an interview earlier this month that the new money would be added to another program called “Basic Needs” and would continue to support housing. Other services attached to HOPE, such as counseling, may no longer be provided.

“ Basic Needs ” is a website that lists links to on- and off-campus food, health, hygiene, parenting and other basic resources. FCC does not have a physical office to host the program. Under the housing tab of the website, all resources are external, directing students to Fresno Housing Authority, Fresno Economic Opportunity Commission, and other organizations. The college’s HOPE program used to be listed among these resources, until the college took down the website on July 9, the same day The Bee interviewed Pimentel about the program cut.

The State Chancellor’s Office said that despite the cuts to the HOPE program, FCC is still eligible for the funding, as long as they are providing services related to housing. Some examples are “connecting students with community case managers” and “establishing an ongoing emergency housing process,” a list of funding usage provided by the office. It was not immediately clear how the state oversees the housing support rollout.

The 50 students currently housed by HOPE have not heard updates or confirmations on subsequent assistance from FCC, though the college said that no one will be thrown on the streets.

Martinez said she bombarded district officials with emails and phone calls, and was told that students were notified that they could stay in the housing. She contacted some HOPE students and found no one heard a word of confirmation.

She said she called Fuentes to ask how the college notified students. “He said: ‘Well, I don’t know, that’s a good question,’” Martinez relayed the conversation to The Bee as she remembered it.

“You never send an email to students after you picked them up off the street, you took them out of the rehabs, you took them from jail, you took them from the shelters, and you said ‘we got a great program for you from homelessness to housing’, and you’re going to make them homeless again,” said Martinez. “Now you think any of these people are going to trust the system?”

Tongate said he never paid attention to shelters because there is not enough support for one to really get stabilized. That was why he preferred to live in the car for four months before he decided to try HOPE.

“It’s really helpful by showing something that we need because there’s no other program like this, maybe that’s part of why they didn’t like it because it would take a while for someone to show the progress they are wanting,” he said. “I’m really sad the program’s ending.”