Homeless students living on a campus parking lot at Cal Poly Humboldt received a notice at the beginning of November stating they are: “Required to move their vehicle from university property by noon on Sunday, November 12th.”
While students reported that nothing happened on Sunday– Monday morning, many students were met with parking tickets.
“I actually wasn’t in my car, I was staying at a friend’s house, so my vehicle was ticketed with two tickets when I got home […] one ticket was for the violation of living or sleeping in said vehicle, but there was no one in the vehicle and it said in the comments that the windows were covered, but I don’t know why I wouldn’t cover my windows because I don’t want people to be able to see inside and have a reason to break in and steal my things, especially if I’m not there,” Maddy Montiel, organizer of the Alternative Living Club said. “The other ticket was for not being in the lane properly, but I was fully in the lane in the lines, not over them at all […] so I was issued two tickets essentially, and between the two of us we actually got a total of five tickets.”
Five tickets at 53-bucks a piece? That’s $265.
The Faculty Senate at CPH met last week and sent a recommendation in favor of allowing students to live in their vehicles at least till the end of the academic year.
But the final decision has to come from university president, Tom Jackson.
Brad Butterfeild Alternative Living Club: “The senate obviously represents the faculty so that is, in a sense, the entire faculty voicing their support for students currently living in vehicles,” Brad Butterfeild of the Alternative Living Club said. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t have any weight to change the regulation itself, that power still lies with the president, so we need his signature for anything to actually change.”
Redwood News reached out to CPH for a statement, they said they had no further comment and referred us to the october 25th email stating that overnight parking creates quote “unsafe and unsanitary conditions”–
As well as an email sent on Nov. 1st stating that: “The university has had a long-standing parking regulation which was updated in 2016 and prohibits overnight camping on university property.”
They cited sanitation as a reason for that but they also temporarily suspended the regulation during covid.
Students living in their vehicles were also told by administration earlier this semester that it was okay for them to sleep in their vehicles in the parking lots.
“The only thing consistent throughout these entire three weeks has been the complete inconsistency from the administration and that the story has changed every single day, no matter who we talk to and it’s also changed day to day, administrator to administrator,” Butterfield said.
Since the decision is now up to President Jackson, students supporting their alternative living peers had this to share.
“It’s just so sad to see the school push away its own, its own members in a dehumanizing manner,” Sterling Russel, a CPH student said. “I really would just request the admin to really look at what they’re doing here and look at this precedent.”
