"The numbers are way higher than that," says Dr. According to Bill Bloom, Associate Dean of Financial Aid and Scholarships, 28 students self-identified as homeless or at risk of homelessness in response to questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application form in the current school year. "We do not have great statistical information yet at SMC, but we are working on it," says Nancy Grass, the Associate Dean of Student Life, in an email. No one knows the exact number of students at SMC experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. He usually arranges a place to stay, but has also stayed at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles - either sleeping on a chair in the lobby or outside on their grounds. and go to class Monday through Wednesday," he says. "On Sunday or Monday morning, I take the Greyhound bus to L.A., and then I couch surf while I'm in L.A. “The big hurdles that I had was that my credit isn’t great, and I don’t have money saved up." Munoz says,".things just spiraled down from there." Munoz stayed with various friends and family, and at a veterans' homeless shelter in Hollywood. He moved to Los Angeles to attend SMC in Spring 2010, attending intermittently until deploying to serve in Afghanistan, then returning to resume his studies. "Literally in the middle of exams, I had to figure out some way for a permanent place to live, which was stressful," says Munoz, a veteran who grew up in Bakersfield. The homeowner had sold the house, but neglected to tell the tenants. Twenty-seven-year-old Santa Monica College student Francisco Munoz was living in a rented house near the Los Angeles International Airport last fall when his landlord gave him and his roommates two weeks to move out.
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