Local community college students are well into a housing crisis.
Nearly 60% of San Diego Community College District students are housing insecure, and nearly 25% are unhoused.
That is the staggering statistic that San Diego City College President Ricky Shabazz shared at an event unveiling the design of a new affordable student housing project at 1601 B Street.
The project is set to be completed in April 2028, and it will provide at least 800 single-room beds in more than 83 apartment-style studio, two-bed and four-bed units.
In addition to affordable units, the fully solar-powered complex will offer study lounges, a fitness center, a communal kitchen, a top-floor Sky Lounge for city viewing and laundry on each of its seven floors.
While rent prices have not been officially set, City College officials hope it will be $1,000 or less, and at least $500 cheaper than comparable dorms at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.
“[Our students] also tell us, particularly those who don’t continue, [that] they have to work,” Shabazz said. “Many of our students are part-time, taking six units or less, because it’s expensive to live in San Diego.
“There’s no way my students could afford to live in the high rises downtown San Diego, where it costs $3,000 for a studio. Many of them live in Tijuana. Many of them live in southeast San Diego. That means they’re either having to catch the trolley, bike, catch a ride here.”
Rather than the lottery system, a popular method for dorm selection, Shabazz explained that these units will go to the absolute highest need students as selected through existing campus data and an application process.
“The goal is to get them to be full-time students,” Shabazz said. “And so we are going to be identifying students who are justice-impacted, veterans, former foster youth, student parents, who are going to be required to register full-time so we can fast-track them to transfer into their given career, so that they can access the middle class and beyond.”
In order to keep rent prices low, the $250 million project is 100% funded through Measure HH bonds, which San Diegans passed last November.
However, as part of a growing national trend, City College has been working towards community college campus housing since 2022.
“You can’t focus on your studies if you’re worried about where you will sleep at night,” said SDCCD Board of Trustees member Geysil Arroyo. “That’s why we made student housing a priority under Measure HH. Voters trusted us to use these funds wisely to repair, improve and reimagine our campuses for the future, and this project delivers on that promise.”
As part of a private-public partnership, City College teamed up with developer The Michaels Organization, which covered all predevelopment costs when the project began in 2023, to later be paid back with Measure HH funds.
This marks the beginning of City College improvements and SDCCD affordable housing projects, with the three other community colleges currently in the planning phase.
“The district is launching efforts to offer employee housing because our employees can’t live down here either,” Shabazz said. “And so I see a day within the next 10 or so years that we’ll have student housing at every one of the community colleges in San Diego proper, and we’ll have some units for employees as well.”
City College administrators hope that this will set a new precedent not just for community college housing, but for affordable housing that is dignified and modern.
“We tell students that they belong here. We tell our employees that they belong here. We tell the community that you belong here,” Shabazz said. “And this is just the next step in ensuring that students know that they belong here.”
A 3D-rendered video tour of the complex can be found here.
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