We are contacting you to express our collective concerns regarding the announcement in week 10 of the semester of a policy that criminalizes our houseless students living in Cal Poly Humboldt parking lots. That communication framed our houseless students as a group of people who are feared, clearly intimidating them to get them off campus.
This announcement mirrors the corporate model of outsourcing and individualizing problems for others to solve, instead of addressing the structural conditions contributing to the housing insecurity experienced by so many of our students. Our community houseless advocates and non-profit organizations are already overwhelmed with taking care of the needs of the many non-student houseless folks on our streets and in the forest. As an institution, we can do better than this.
It is critical for the basic needs of our students and our responsibility as a community organization that Cal Poly Humboldt address our problems head on, instead of putting the burden on others. We suggest a model that has been implemented on other campuses.
Department of Sociology Faculty
Tony Silvaggio, Chair and Professor of Sociology
Dominic Corva, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Caglar Dolek, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Stefanie Israel de Souza, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Torisha Khonach, Lecturer in Sociology
Chris Martinek, Lecturer in Sociology
Josh Meisel, Professor of Sociology
Elizabeth Rienzi, Lecturer in Sociology
Michihiro Sugata, Associate Professor of Sociology
Mary Virnoche, Professor of Sociology
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