With several college students being left high and dry by some colleges, some, like Cerritos Community College have found new ways to leverage existing resources to deliver on their brand promise to students.

In this case, working towards solving the crisis of college student homelessness with The Village, housing free of charge, within walking distance of Cerritos college, and able to house up to 28 students ages 18 to 25.

Developed in partnership with Jovenes Inc., a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that assists homeless youth and those with unstable housing situations.

This marks a much-needed addition to their community, with an existing program that offers rent subsidies to college students, helping them with affordable options at a rate of $200 to $300 per month, which is significantly less than the average cost of living in Los Angeles County

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Greta Anderson of inside higher ed spoke to Kaylah Parard, 24, one of the first students to move into the new housing development who said

“Once you get that housing situation and you’re not worried about where you’re going to lay your head at night, you can focus on everything else.”

Kaylah Parard, Student

More from Greta:

A #RealCollege survey found that 55 percent of students identified as housing insecure and 15 percent said they experienced homelessness in the last year.

It was clear that the affordable-housing crisis in California was directly impacting students even though traditional college-aged people were not typically considered by policymakers and government administrators in public discussions about homelessness, Jose Fierro, president of Cerritos Community College said.

“The main intent of the project is to improve the life of students,” Fierro, said. “If they don’t have a house, even the smartest of students will underperform … The second intent is to create a model that will show it’s possible to have housing that is specifically focused on students that are home insecure without running in the red. We do this by pooling resources together from agencies.”

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This coming on the heels of college after college student starting to realize that all their debt isn’t exactly worth the investment, some, have fought back, and learned the hard way that the current business model doesn’t take their well being into consideration.

Recently, the Education Department denied tens of thousands of requests for loan forgiveness from students whose colleges defrauded them

Luckily there are others working towards something better, like MIT and Harvard suing the White House to protect students who are in the U.S. for school

Right now is a good time for colleges to take a good look at what they can and should do for the students that attend their schools, and later go out into the workforce.

And should they decide it’s better for them to not do better for their customers, well then it’s never too late for someone else to fill that need

Here’s to escaping average