Site icon Michelle Dione

Choosing Between Housing and Education

Michelle Dione

One story of an all too common reality for community college students in California

Armani Tuner-Jenkins looks forward to his future as he navigates away from dead-end jobs and living pay-check to pay-check towards full-filling his dreams.

When resources are not available to young college students, prioritizing education over housing can be a difficult choice. For Laney College football player Armani Turner-Jenkins, his choice was between basic comforts and achieving his long-term goals.

Turner-Jenkins has spent much of his 21 years of life pursuing football as a means to obtain a scholarship. He has a passion for football, but he does not play just for fun.

He says he understands that there are limited choices for him to pursue a four-year college degree without scholarships, and football is something he does very well.

Last season, the Eagles linebacker led the State Championship team with 61 solo tackles and 33 assists. He also had eight sacks and one interception for 49 yards.

Football has taught Turner-Jenkins valuable lessons in life and given him a path forward in building a strong character, drive, humility, and problem-solving.

Football has kept me on track. It keeps me away from the streets. Football transfers to life so much,

In addition, the sport has taught him how to work with people and how to understand them better.

Most of his life, Turner-Jenkins has lived in the Bay Area, between Berkeley and Richmond. He played football for Berkeley High and hoped to get scholarships, but said the Berkeley football team does not usually play well enough to get noticed by recruiters.

After not securing a football scholarship to get into a four-year college, Jenkins went to Laney as a cheaper educational option to avoid student debt.

In his first year, Turner-Jenkins worked 30-plus hours, maintained a full class schedule and attended football practice and games. By his second semester, he realized he could not keep up with his school work.

Turner-Jenkins felt that he had two choices—focus on working full time to pay rent, or focus on his future. He was ready to sacrifice secure housing to pursue academics in social sciences and communications.

Being like a robot, working 9-5 and getting just enough to survive, was not the wiser choice, he decided. ‘What was I put on this earth to do? I got a passion, I got a goal, I’m a human,’Turner-Jenkins said.

“There has to be something special about myself—work will make you feel like you’re going in circles. There’s nothing there for you. Especially if you are a minority. It’s not made for us.

Once he decided to focus on school full time, he was kicked out of the home he was staying in. When it was time to move, he didn’t have a place to go because he did not get along with his mom, he said.

There were times Turner-Jenkins would go to class and football practice and he would feel fine, but once he left practice, reality would hit. He had to find a place to stay for the night.

“That ‘what’s next’ is the hardest,” Turner-Jenkins said, “because you don’t really have an answer. So you just keep moving.”

Eventually, he moved in with his godparents until he could get into an emergency shelter. Turner-Jenkins was placed in a tiny home in the Lower Bottoms, near West Oakland BART station that was provided by a church.

Shootings occur almost every night, he said, and he fears bullets will go through the tiny home. Despite that, he said he is thankful to have a place to sleep every night so he can focus on school.

Now that he is in a tiny home he feels more accountable and shows up to class more. He feels decently happy. There are little things that still bother him, like not having a washer or dryer and having enough hot water to take showers, but a roof and a door are all he needs. It is better than being on someone else’s couch, he said.

“Last week I wasn’t even coming to class because I was like, man I don’t want to go to class, because I didn’t have clean clothes,” Turner-Jenkins said. “There’s a lot of things going on with me being a student that brings a lot of insecurities.”

In West Oakland his choices for food are limited to whatever liquor stores, fast food, and one Chinese restaurant provide. To him, none of these choices are good and all of them are pricey because no one has anywhere else to go for food, water and juice.

If everyone received an education that teaches a better understanding of society, history, culture and perspective from every part of the world, Turner-Jenkins said, our society would have a better understanding of their biases.

“We live in a world of fantasy because we lack a reality,” he said. ”The reality is, we lack in knowledge, so we are biased toward each other.”

Last season, the Eagles linebacker led the State Championship team with 61 solo tackles and 33 assists. He also had eight sacks and one interception for 49 yards.

Laney Eagles Linebacker Armani Turner-Jenkins #9

The High Cost of Education – Research Paper

I. INTRODUCTION

Education is a fundamental social institution that can make a big difference in a person’s career choices, salary, and quality of life. Community colleges are a cheaper avenue to obtain training in trade jobs and completing prerequisite courses for four-year colleges. Many community college students face extreme decisions and sacrifice in order to obtain a degree. Almost 50% of community colleges in the most costly regions in the state of California have experienced homelessness. The reasons they become homeless can vary from lack of resources, family support, low wages, and lack of affordable housing. Many people in the most expensive cities in California have to work 2-3 jobs just to live paycheck-to-paycheck. For a college student, without affordable housing, having to work full-time is not an option because they can not spend time on homework. When there is a lack of educated populace, companies will outsource their workforce from other states and countries, further exacerbating housing crises with newcomers who need housing. Meanwhile, the under-educated populace becomes stuck in low-paying dead-end jobs that barely keep them afloat. Education should be available to everyone to achieve, but there are many issues tied to education that make that almost impossible for people who do not have the resources.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW:

III. Personal Interview of Laney Community College Student living in “Tiny Home”

IV. PERSONAL INTERVIEW REPORT:

Social Problem: Lack of affordable housing makes it difficult to achieve higher education

Armani spent a majority of life living in Berkeley and Richmond before moving to Oakland, CA to play football at Laney Community College. He has spent all of high school and the last two years at community college focused on football in hopes of being recruited. He wanted to avoid being in student debt and felt football was the only way. He loves football, it has taught him discipline, teamwork, and given him stronger characteristics. He said because he went to Berkeley High, recruiters ignored him because the football team is not very good there, despite Cal Berkeley being just up the road.

He did not get along with his mom and has a twin brother. Both brothers were kicked out of the home in high school, they had to try and work and go to school in order to pay rent. Armani stayed with a friend who stayed with grandparents. Once Armani decided he needed to stop working to focus on his grades in school, the grandparents kicked him out.

He stayed with a godmother for a while until they could find him temporary shelter in a “tiny home” in West Oakland. He said he hears gunshots almost nightly and knows of people getting shot just around the corner from where he stays. He does not feel safe, he feels like the neighborhood as a whole has a sickness, everyone looks mean and ready to shoot. So he puts on a tough face and stays to himself.

Armani is fine with working if he had the time and energy too. He was working at Home Depot, they made him work just under full time at 30 plus hours a week. Between work, football practice, games, and homework, he found it impossible to keep up and saw his grades slipping. 

At the end of the day when he finds himself alone, his thoughts turn to “What’s next. And that what’s next is the hardest because you don’t really have an answer. So you just keep moving,” Armani said about being homeless.

Other issues Armani had with being homeless, living in a “tiny home” were living in a food desert. There is nothing but liquor stores, a McDonalds, a KFC and Chinese food place he says overcharges for one item plates of food. The one store that has fresh produce is closed by the time he gets back from school. The liquor stores are very limited on healthy options, water and juice are about the only choices, He said they overcharge for everything in the liquor stores as well, he believes it is because there are no other options so people have to pay whatever price they charge.

It is very difficult for Armani to wash his clothes. Because he takes pride in being clean and his appearance, this was one of the things he kept mentioning that really made him self conscious. He said at times he did not want to go to school, and it made him want to cry. But he has to swallow his emotions and keep going forward even when he finds there is nowhere to go. He said, “Last week I wasn’t even coming to class because I was like, man I don’t want to go to class because I didn’t have clean clothes. There’s a lot of things going on with me for me being a student that brings a lot of insecurities. Insecurities with my housing, with jobs.”

Armani’s twin brother went a different wrote, forgoing school to work full time. His brother now has a place to stay, but Armani says he sees a certain sadness in his brother. He believes his brother is stuck in a dead-end job that he is miserable in, and fears that is the fate they are forced to live in, a choice between living housed while going to a job they hate for the rest of their lives and going to school to eventually find a career that is fulfilling. He says working a dead-end minimum wage job for the rest of his life is no way to live. He said it was a life for a robot, not a human.

I asked Armani if he thought his life would have been different if he had a chance to grow up middle class in the suburbs with better education, he said he would have taken advantage of every opportunity given to him if that was the case. He may have played football just for fun and focused on different career paths and school, but he has always seen his only available choice to get ahead was to play football and get scholarships.
 

V. FIELD NOTES:

Our society places unfair advantages to those who can afford to go to college and not have to work while keeping those who can not afford high costs of living at a disadvantage. Tech companies in the Bay Area often have to hire outside of the Bay Area because they say there are not enough qualified applicants. Instead of training locals, they are moving in people from around the country and the world, people who had advantages of higher education. Moving in a fresh new workforce that needs housing further exacerbates the housing crisis. In an area that is already costly to live in with some of the highest rents in the country and the world, there comes a point where there is no place for younger, poor students to afford housing and go to school. Regardless if it was the intent for the tech industry to push out large populations of poor people in the Bay Area, they have created a housing crisis that directly affects and replaces a population who should be receiving a proper education to fill that workforce. 

Community colleges are a cheaper way to receive an associates degree and complete requirements before going to a four-year college. Not only should Community colleges be accessible for all people regardless of their income, but housing for students should be accessible as well. There will be no end to poverty and gentrification if a housing solution for students is not created soon.

VII. WORKS CITED:

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