Housing insecurity at rural colleges leads some to drastic measures, including fish houses and possibly barges

An 'Ice Castle' fish-house trailer. (Photo from Ice Castle Fish Houses)

Low-income seniors, struggling families and rural college students are all experiencing a similar problem: There is no place to live! "Housing insecurity has long been an issue in rural areas, but high inflation, pandemic migration, and last year’s record-breaking real estate market have created an untenable situation at rural campuses across the country," reports Nick Fouriezos of The Daily Yonder. "Administrators at Minnesota State Community and Technical College have heard of students living on frozen lakes, in makeshift camper communities that double as ice fishing huts."

Carrie Brimhall, president of the Moorhead school, told Fouriezos, "I know we have students living in Ice Castles," one brand of fish house. "When the housing market was so crazy, the people who had rented to students sold their properties. Not every buyer kept them as rentals, so now students don’t have a place to live. . . . Even if we start a new destination program, it’s hard to find places for students to live so they can take it.”

The lack of housing is not compatible with university expansion plans. In California, "Cal Poly Humboldt. . . is in the middle of an ambitious plan to rapidly boost its 5,700-student enrollment by 50% in the next three years," Fouriezos reports. "It’s already struggling to meet the basic housing needs of the students it has, not to mention those to come."

Humboldt County,
California (Wikipedia)

Fouriezos reports, "The first Saturday of February, Cal Poly Humboldt quietly updated its housing website. Incoming first-years would have priority for all on-campus housing, the university revealed. The move sparked instant protests, a petition from parents demanding that enrollment increases halt and even the formation of a new student organization—Cal Poly Homeless—to address the changes. . . The university has since said it would find on-campus beds . . . . However, many Cal Poly Humboldt students are worried that those solutions will be far from ideal." On Feb. 15, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Cal Poly was considering putting student dorms on floating barges.

“We have all these housing projects in the works, but it takes a few years, and students are coming before those are done,” Cal Poly Humboldt VP Jenn Capps told Fouriezos, adding that hotels would be a key part of their plan. Oden Taylor, a Cal Poly Humboldt junior, told Fouriezos, “This is not a big city, where there is adequate public transportation. Everything is very small. . . .There are so many problems with the infrastructure at the school already."

Fouriezos writes, "The university’s [expansion] decisions have contributed to ongoing tension between the college and its surrounding community. Students are often the target of that rift. . . . Still, the students may actually share more in common with the townies than one would think—and both populations have significant concerns about Cal Poly Humboldt’s rapid expansion plans."