Editor’s note: This printed essay was found sitting in the Natural Resources building of Cal Poly Humboldt in the week after the Nov 2nd Cal Poly Homeless protest.
On October 20, 2023 at 4:27 PM a campus wide message was sent out concerning the enforcement of parking regulations. This message was repugnant and should be considered a disgrace to the community of Cal Poly Humboldt. The university’s current policy towards these students is unjust and rather than finding meaningful solutions for these students, they have provided inadequate temporary housing and are trying to push these students off-campus burdening the resources of the wider Arcata City and Humboldt County communities. Campus policy ought not be drafted and enforced due to NIMBY outcry.
The remarks concerning the “unsanitary and unsafe” conditions is troubling insofar that it mirrors actual fascist rhetoric. Merely evicting these students would not solve these stated problems. If sanitation is truly a concern, then such amenities ought to be provided for these students. I am quite skeptical of this concern however, due to the university’s unwillingness to clean up the mold and asbestos around campus or to provide menstrual products in the women’s restrooms. If it is unsafe then those issues should also be addressed. The safety of the students living in vehicles ought to also be accounted for, which I fear that they have not. It will be far less safe for these students to be forced off-campus then to remain where they are currently located.
The university has a history of gross misuse of their resources. During last semester, amidst the student housing protests, they literally paid people to move out of the dorms and rented out hotels (where houseless people were staying) increasing Arcata’s housing shortage. Now they are evicting students who pay the university for an education because they still can’t afford housing. The university’s continued growth policy that increases student houselessness followed by anti-houseless policy is outright despotic. It is no wonder why enrollment numbers are far less than projected.
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