AUTUMN’S WINTER
Western graduate shares her struggle navigating resources needed to escape homelessness in her final year of enrollment
Written by Isa Kaufman-Geballe
Wearing a scarlet beanie and a checkered flannel, Western student Autumn Lynn stood poised before a podium, facing a row of Bellingham City Council members. Surrounding her was a crowded room filled to the brim with homeless advocates, social workers and concerned residents.
The chamber room definitely beat the temperature of an unforgiving Bellingham winter, Lynn thought. At least she didn’t feel the icy gusts of wind slipping through the aluminum doors of her van and into her bones. Still, an emergency meeting about temporary housing in the midst of dangerous weather conditions was one of the last places she thought she would be to speak about what she went through in the past five months.
Lynn adjusted the microphone in front of her and lowered her head to speak to the crowd.
“My name is Autumn and I am a disabled homeless student at Western,” Lynn said.
Lynn wanted her situation to be known. That people like her were also experiencing homelessness. She wanted to paint a picture of the numerous times she was turned away, redirected and rejected from places she thought she could turn to for help.
Lynn thought she tried her absolute best to ask for support from Western. She was her own best advocate, even when it came to school. She had received good grades, she had a work-study job at the library. But in February 2019, it had been six months since she had a home.
Lynn’s story isn’t an isolated situation. Thousands of college students experience homelessness or housing insecurity each year. According to a 2018 study conducted by the Wisconsin Hope Lab, 9% of college students attending 4-year public universities were homeless during the 2016 to 2017 academic year. The U.S. Department of Education corroborated this — nationwide, 32,739 students were determined to be at risk of being homeless.
Homelessness is not a clear-cut experience, especially for students who might not consider themselves a part of the homeless population, such as those sleeping on a friend’s couch or in their car. According to the Wisconsin Hope Lab, people experiencing homelessness, including students, are usually faced with “[a] broader set of challenges such as the inability to pay rent, or utilities, or the need to move frequently.”
Autumn’s Fall
Two years earlier, Lynn packed up her belongings in Spokane Falls and moved to Bellingham to attend in the fall of 2017. She had enrolled at Western to study psychology and work as a research assistant.
The following spring, a lease renewal arrived in Lynn’s mailbox. She immediately grabbed the envelope from her kitchen counter, walking it over to her roommates to sign. That was when they broke the news to her that they had signed a lease without her. Her heart sank.
Without a back-up plan to save for a single room apartment, Lynn was suddenly without a home.
Lynn used her savings to purchase the only temporary housing she thought she could afford at the time: a white industrial van off of Craigslist. That summer she parked the van she lived out of in the C lots, a five minute walk from her nearest class.
“It’s kind of just like defeat,” she recalled, “but also the realization that no one else was offering, so I had to rely on myself. And this was the last option, or best option, that I had.”
Before her van became her home, Lynn took measures into her own hands to try and find a solution to her housing insecurity. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing search.
Lynn sought support from Western’s Disability Access Center first, where she registered as a disabled student diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She sought support from Western’s Equal Opportunity Office and eventually, the University Housing Office.
All of these places redirected her to the Student Financial Aid Office, where she visited several times. Their responses were repetitive and not very constructive, Lynn said.
Students who self-identified as unaccompanied homeless youth on their FAFSA application can qualify for special Federal Student Aid, Paul Cocke, Western’s director for university of communications and marketing, said. 45 Western students self-identified as homeless on their application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in 2018.
Lynn met with staff at Western’s Financial Aid Department office. Despite FAFSA’s technicalities, she hoped they could help her as a full-time student with good academic standing.
Independent adults over the age of 24, like Lynn, have to jump through many hurdles to receive this aid. Even if a homeless student has a disability or mental illness, there must be a homeless youth determination to prove they are at risk of homelessness and unaccompanied, according to Federal Student Aid documents.
The office attendant broke the heavy news. Lynn only qualified for a loan, something she could not afford to pay back. After a long and exhaustive search, the sting of reality started to set in for Lynn– she would need to take matters into her own hands.
“They offered me access to loans and that was it. They were like, ‘We don’t have any other resources’ and ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything else.’”
She was told to look for posters around campus that might have information on housing insecurity and homelessness. As a last resort, Lynn called University Residences. They offered her a shared room, but what she needed was a single room to accommodate her disability.
Lynn thought she had exhausted all of her resources. She was tired of looking. After several phone calls and failed attempts to acquire emergency housing from the University, she was done.
Then, her winter began.
Autumn’s Winter
As snow fell and temperatures dropped below freezing, Lynn questioned how long she could survive without the warmth of a home. Her van was packed with sleeping bags and blankets, but the cold temperatures intruded her sleep. “Water was starting to freeze in the night,” Lynn said. By the time she checked her dogs drinking bowl in the morning, it was frozen.
Lynn looked to Facebook for solutions, scrolling through her newsfeed when she came across a video livestream by the nonprofit HomesNow! Not Later, a local Bellingham homeless advocacy organization. She recalled seeing a grainy image of Markis Dee, a volunteer and homeless advocate, calling out to viewers that he was on his way to pick up anyone who was sleeping outside on the chilly and damp sidewalks of Bellingham, and put them up in a motel.
Hearing this, Lynn immediately dialed their phone number and connected with the organization. The organization were able to offer her a room in a nearby motel. Finally, she was given direct help, at least for a few days.
When they met, Dee and Lynn immediately clicked on their shared passion for homeless advocacy. At the time, Dee was unaware of her living situation. He soon learned her reality while they worked together to pick up homeless individuals in the streets of Bellingham in below freezing temperatures.
Lynn’s increased interest in helping homeless people like her led her to speak in front of the Bellingham City Council. She spoke from her direct experience with homelessness and her frustrations with the lack of accessible resources for people with disabilities, like her.
“She attended these meetings with us,” Dee said. “And spoke eloquently to her needs.”
One person who had been watching her speak was Clarissa Mansfield, the communications manager for Western Libraries. Mansfield immediately recognized Lynn as someone on her staff. She was shocked when Lynn revealed she was homeless. Mansfield recalled walking past Lynn numerous times before in the library’s commons.
Mansfied said she was saddened and overwhelmed to learn about Lynn’s situation. “I wish there was some way to address this as a community of people at Western.”
Mansfield wanted to help, but she also was conflicted about intruding on Lynn’s privacy.
Through a mutual friend they were able to meet, and Mansfield was able to ask Lynn if she could share her story. Mansfield put together a group of staff members to support Lynn and meet with her disability advisor. To their joy, they received the news that there was a pathway for Lynn to receive housing accommodations for her disability at a reduced price, two months before she was supposed to graduate and move to Denver.
When interviewed, Western’s Vice President Melynda Husky and Police Chief Darin Rasmussen declined to comment when directly asked about Autumn’s experience, citing student privacy laws. Husky said there are resources and programs available to house students on a case-by-case basis, only if the student lets a staff member know they are struggling with housing insecurity.
There are no specific trainings dedicated to serving students experiencing homelessness for front desk or administration staff at the DAC or University Police, according to the DAC and Rasmussen.
Although many of the systems in place were not able to provide aid to Lynn in the beginning of her homeless experience, the help of these library staff members made the difference.
“I finally found some staff members who put pressure on places and got me housing my last two months,” Lynn said.
This was the first time she’d been given advice that offered her a solution. It wasn’t offered when she sought support through university resources. She was disappointed that it had to come from someone she knew, and not from student services Lynn thought were available to her and other students.
Though Lynn had a stable place to live while getting through her finals, she was hurt that it took so long to receive help from the University. She was even more upset the loophole that led to her to her price reduced room in University Residences was not discovered as an option sooner.
“They claim they didn’t know I would have taken a single room.” Lynn said. “But I told my advisor multiple times I couldn’t share a room because of my disability, and I couldn’t afford a single room.”
Lynn was grateful for the support she received from individual staff members like Mansfield and organizations like Homes!Now but she still felt that as a disabled homeless student, she fell through the cracks.
Autumn’s Spring
Before leaving to Denver, Lynn presented a bouquet of flowers and a butterfly-painted card to Mansfield, who keeps it on a board in her office to remind her connection to Lynn’s journey. Even when Lynn finally had a roof over her head, Mansfield would check in on her consistently and attended her research presentation.
Reflecting back, Lynn had to take so many measures just to make it through her education. She was still angry. Leading up to the weeks of her graduation, Lynn’s friends begged her to walk in the ceremony.
“I don’t feel any connection with this University at all. I just wanted to be done,” Lynn said.
But she also realized that though the resources she attempted to access weren’t helpful, there were individuals like Mansfield that made the difference.
Lynn sat in her cluttered van. When she pressed her face to her computer screen, the light reflected from her glasses. She was on her way to Denver, where her boyfriend moved a year before. Her home was on the road once again, but at least she knew that she had somewhere to go.
