Youth Today Shares Op-Ed Highlighting College Students’ Experiences with Homelessness and Housing Insecurity
Jun 08, 2026
By Julie Walker, NLIHC Project Manager, Opportunity Starts at Home
Youth Today, an independent news site that reports on issues affecting youth, shared an op-ed from Harper, a junior at Westminster University in Utah. The op-ed, “I lived in a coat closet to stay in college,” details Harper’s challenges navigating her first two years of college while experiencing homelessness. Harper highlights national data on college student homelessness to connect her experiences to a wider issue that institutional, state, and federal education and housing policies must address.
In the op-ed, Harper describes challenges to remain stably housed during the times of year when the dorm rooms on her campus closed. Inflexible policies for staying in the dorms meant that she had to sleep in spaces not meant to be used as bedrooms, including a bathroom and a closet. She emphasizes that on a wider scale, these inflexible dorm policies disproportionally impact low-income and homeless students. She highlights how her experiences reflect trends among college students experiencing homelessness in a recent report from SchoolHouse Connection and Trellis Strategies, “Removing Barriers, Building Futures: Data-Informed Policies to Support College Students Experiencing Homelessness.” Her experiences of hidden homelessness mirror the report’s finding that half of students experiencing homelessness couch surf and 73% move in with others due to financial problems.
Harper concludes her op-ed by advocating for higher education liaisons on college campuses whose job is dedicated to supporting students experiencing homelessness, similar to the requirement for K-12 school districts to have a designated liaison under the “McKinney-Vento Act.” She highlights how many states already require higher education liaisons, and some require priority or year-round campus housing access for students experiencing homelessness. She also emphasizes that strong federal policies are needed to ensure that students facing housing instability and homelessness are supported.
Read the op-ed here.
Opportunity Starts at Home is hosting a webinar on June 18 to discuss the issue of homelessness among college students and what’s needed to address it. Register here today to learn more.