Program Helps UTEP Homeless Students

Every night there are dozens of students who leave the University of Texas at El Paso campus and don’t have a home to call their own.

According to university officials, some sleep on benches, in their cars or at local shelters.

“I would just find random friends to stay with during the week and then go back to Juarez,” said Mario Blanco, a nursing student at UTEP.

He experienced a type of homelessness many others students face with no stable place to stay.

Officials said this year the numbers are increasing. Officials said about 130 students claimed to be homeless, that’s compared with about 100 last year.

“Not all the 130 actually attended UTEP. Some of them started, some of them had to drop out. A few of them do finish a semester,” said Josue Lachica, coordinator for Foster, Homeless, Adoption, Resource at UTEP.

He helped develop the program two years ago after he realized the growing homeless situation on campus.

FHAR provides homeless students or those who age out of foster care with housing, food and medical care.

“We have these services already built in to UTEP, so a lot of times we try to get in contact with a student to make sure they know about these services,” Lachica said.

Going to school under normal conditions is stressful enough, and not having a stable place to call home can make that stress worse. But Lachica said school is like a safe haven for students who are homeless.

“They have some sort of stability, some sort of creation of community,” said Lachica.

As a result he said many of the students do become successful. Lachica said FHAR once helped a homeless students who was found washing his clothes on campus.

“He was an excellent student, just ran into hard times,” Lachica said.

He said that student is now getting ready for graduate school. “Sometimes it takes just a little bit of help and then they can help themselves,” Lachica explained.

Help and determination can go a long way as Blanco knows. He said he now has his own place and deals with more common obstacles students face.

“You just have to balance out living on your own and laundry and stuff like that,” Blanco said.

For more information about FHAR click here.

To contact Josue Lachica, call 915-747-6674 or e-mail fhar@utep.edu.