WEBVTT

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[ Music ]

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[applause]

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>> Thank you all.

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Do you remember the moment when you realized
what you wanted to do with your life?

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I do. It was just a couple years back and
I had recently moved into a new apartment

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that overlooked my old college campus.

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And I was telling a friend how much
I like the view and I mentioned,

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you know sort of offhandedly at first, I
said it's so fitting that I live so close

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to school now because campus always
felt like home to me anyways.

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And it was true.

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As an undergraduate student I
was very involved on campus.

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I was the president of my sorority,
I served on student government,

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I started the school spirit club,
school was my life, campus was home.

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And when I said those words that day it
just hit me and I thought oh my gosh,

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if I study higher education then I can work

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on college campuses forever
and I'll never have to leave.

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So I did and here I am.

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I talk about that story, you know, that
moment often when explaining to people why I'm

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so passionate about higher education or
why I like working with college students,

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but there's a part of the
story that I usually leave out.

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And that is exactly why college felt like
home to me back then and it wasn't just

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because of friends or student organizations,
it was because for a period during

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that time I didn't really have
anywhere else to call home.

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I was homeless.

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And it turns out I was not the only one.

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It's estimated that there are upwards

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of 58,000 homeless students on
college campuses nationwide.

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And this is likely a low estimate.

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A more recent study of community college
students found that 14 percent were homeless

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and half, 50 percent, were
experiencing housing insecurity.

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I became a part of this statistic after the
economy crashed in 2008 and I lost my job.

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Shortly after my car was repossessed.

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I was evicted from two different apartments and
I had failed four semesters worth of classes.

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My life was in a constant state of upheaval

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but through all this I kept
just trying to go to school.

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It never even occurred to me to take a break.

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And plus I don't want to drop out of school.

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Being a student was my entire life.

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I identified as being a student.

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I never identified as being homeless.

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Since then I've become very passionate
about helping at risk students succeed.

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And after working with this population for
several years now I'm realizing more and more

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that homelessness truly is a hidden
problem, especially among college students.

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And this is largely due to misconceptions that
we have about homelessness that make it hard

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for us to accept that this
problem can happen to students.

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Prior to working in this
field I had misconceptions

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about what homelessness looked like.

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I bet that everyone here has a very
specific stereotype that comes to mind

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when I say the word homeless, right?

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This is what I looked like when I was homeless.

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It doesn't really fit the stereotype, does it?

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Most of our students won't.

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There are different definitions of homelessness
that range from people living in shelters

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or sleeping in their cars to
those facing eviction or people

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that are couch surfing like I was.

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Most students aren't even aware that what
they're experiencing is homelessness.

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And even if they were no student wants
to be labeled as homeless anyways.

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Students just want to fit in and they will try
their hardest to keep their situation hidden.

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Another mistake we make is that we assume that
students have some level of family privilege.

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So we assume that students
have families and parents

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and those families are safe and stable, loving.

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We assume that families are able

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to provide financial support including
housing to the student, if needed.

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So you know how can a student be homeless?

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Can't they just move back home?

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Unfortunately that's not the
reality of a lot of our students.

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It definitely was not my reality.

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Sometimes there are no parents, no
family, or the family may be unable

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or unwilling to provide support of any kind.

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There might not be a childhood
or family home to return to.

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In my situation, although I was
occasionally able to crash at my dad's place,

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his living situation wasn't safe or stable.

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So it wasn't really an option for me.

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I was lucky of the fact that I
pretty much always had a place

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to sleep even if it was inconsistent.

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But all the instability still
had a huge effect on every aspect

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of my life, especially my academics.

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Before all this started happening
I was a Dean's list student.

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This is hardly scientific evidence
because this is just based on my GPA

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but one would not be wrong to assume

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that being homeless may have negatively
impacted my grades, it probably did.

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But unfortunately we don't know how
this problem affects other students

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because we have very little
data on this subject.

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We haven't done a good job of identifying
homeless students, giving them support

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and resources and tracking their progress
through college, even when we've known

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that we have homeless students on our campuses.

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Just recently EMU made national
news when it was discovered

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that a student was sleeping in
his car and in this library.

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People seemed shocked that such a big problem
could be going on seemingly unnoticed.

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But when you don't have any data it's really
hard to prove that a problem even exist.

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But it does exist.

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Let me tell you it is really hard
to focus on school if you don't know

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where you're going to sleep that night.

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I recently attended a lecture on housing and
the speaker said something that really stuck

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with me, he said without stable
housing everything else falls apart.

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Students cannot learn if their
basic needs are not being met.

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And we cannot help them achieve
success until we are willing to admit

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that homelessness is a problem on our campuses.

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And it is a problem but it is not one
that colleges need to solve alone.

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In fact this is a great opportunity for colleges
to collaborate with community organizations

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that are already doing this type of work.

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EMU, Washtenaw community college and Ozone
House recently launched the MORE program

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which places support for homeless students from
Ozone house right on those college campuses.

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And our new millennial Ozone Board is
going to be doing outreach in the community

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and on campuses raising awareness and
helping to connect students to resources.

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These are just a couple of examples
of what this collaboration is looking

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like right here in our community.

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And now that all of you are aware

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of this problem you can also
help be a part of our solution.

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And there'll be lots of ways for you to
continue to help moving forward, don't worry.

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But for now an easy way to start is simply
by rejecting stereotypes and misconceptions

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that you may have had about homelessness.

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And instead acknowledging
that this problem exists.

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For far too long homeless students
have been hidden on our campuses

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and they deserve an opportunity to
succeed in college and I believe

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that if we continue working together
we can give our students, all students,

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the opportunity to achieve success.

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Thank you.

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[ Applause ]

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Thank you.

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[applause]