Washington state Senate passes bill that would aid homeless college students

The Washington state House voted 30-18 to pass a bill that would provide assistance to homeless college students Wednesday.

Senate Bill 5800 creates pilot programs at four colleges in Washington to provide assistance to homeless students and students who were in foster care. The services include access to short-term housing, housing assistance, laundry facilities, storage, showers, meal plans, technology and case management services.

All public, four-year colleges, universities and community technical colleges are eligible for the program.

Colleges that participate in the pilot program will collect data and issue a report in 2023.

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Emily Randall, D-Bremerton.

“As a state, we’ve taken important steps to support young students experiencing homelessness while in our K-12 system, but once they get to college, they lose that network,” Randall said. “College students experiencing homelessness are facing so many overlapping challenges—LGBTQ youth become homeless at a much higher rate than their straight, cis-gender peers. Between this bill and the provisions in the Reproductive Health Care Access for All Act, we’re expanding support and health care to vulnerable college students.”

It now goes to the House of Representatives for further consideration.

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