With skyrocketing tuition costs and, for many, the added burden of working a part-time job, attending college is very stressful today. Imagine dealing with housing insecurity on top of these demands. Yet 14% of post-secondary education students experience homelessness and 48% some form of housing insecurity, Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice reported in its 2021 #RealCollege Survey of more than 550,000 students at 530 institutions. Students at two-year institutions are harder hit: 52% face some type of housing insecurity compared to 43% of those at four-year institutions. But students at historically Black colleges and universities fare worst: 55% reported lacking a stable, safe place to live at some point in the prior year, according to a Hope Center 2022 survey.
Statistics tell a dire story about the lack of affordable housing for students. The chart at left is from the 2021 #RealCollegeSurvey while the chart at right is from the 2022 Basic Needs Insecurity at HBCUs study.
Ironically, this comes at a time when our nation’s colleges and universities are seeing sinking headcounts—except at HBCUs, where students are flocking amid threats to DEI and to find an authentic sense of community. The upside is trend-bucking growing headcounts at these significant and much-needed institutions. But the downside, namely higher levels of housing insecurity, is upsetting. Of course, significantly higher costs are contributing to the housing insecurity students are facing. Tuition, fees and room and board have outpaced household income growth in the past 20 years by about 2.5 times the median family income growth rate. But fueling this proverbial fire is the fact that housing insecurity is shown to negatively impact academic performance, potentially causing poor grades, lower college completion rates and eroded mental health.
This growing student housing crisis isn’t getting the attention it deserves—yet. At NJCC, it’s our business to be on the frontlines of finding affordable housing solutions. This drive inspired our first investment in student housing: We are participating in a 151-unit, 473-bed off-campus project at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland through our real estate development subsidiary, Community Asset Preservation Corporation (CAPC). With its commitment to growth, student retention and abolishing educational disparities, this HBCU is on fire, and so is its developer, MCB Real Estate. The Baltimore-based, minority-owned firm is focused on projects committed to diversity and inclusion, as our other partners in this effort—the MSU Foundation, WesBanco, Wells Fargo Foundation and The Harbor Bank of Maryland.
The Enolia is named for Enolia Pettigen McMillan, a MSU alum and the first Black woman to lead a Maryland high school and the Baltimore’s NAACP. (Source: Bri Hatch/WYPR)
Christened The Enolia in honor of revered Baltimore civil rights leader Enolia Pettigen McMillan, this vanguard (and LEED Silver) project will not only help MSU meet its critical housing needs as its enrollment grows but will also add vitality to its locale. In an enterprise zone, it’s sited on a long vacant blighted parcel of land on Hartford Road, Baltimore’s anointed Main Street. Nearby, the newly redeveloped Northwood Commons shopping center, an earlier MCB project, is now fully leased and anchored by a grocery store, a Barnes & Noble bookstore and MSU’s new Public Safety Building. Together, this walkable new shopping and eating district and The Enolia will spur community transformation in Northeast Baltimore when students move in for the 2025 school year and the neighborhood comes to life. That’s why we’re so excited—and proud—of this project, which we hope will be the first of many investments in much needed student housing, especially for schools that serve minority and underserved students.
Read on for more information on our current efforts below. Please pass our newsletters on to colleagues and friends who are interested in our mission; they can sign up to receive it here. As always, I would like to hear your observations and ideas on the issues I cover in this newsletter, or just catch up with you. Please be in touch.
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