California lawmakers are advancing legislation that not only fails to solve student homelessness, but enshrines it. Assembly Bill 90 (AB 90), authored by Democratic Assembly member Corey Jackson, Moreno Valley, requires the state’s 72 community college districts to develop plans enabling students to sleep in their cars overnight on campus, establishing “safe-parking” as an official institutional response to a catastrophic housing crisis.

Presented as a compassionate measure, AB 90 in reality represents a reactionary adaptation to poverty. Rather than confronting the causes of the crisis, the bill normalizes mass deprivation while protecting the profits of landlords, developers and financial institutions.

The scale of California’s student homelessness crisis exposes the devastation wrought by decades of bipartisan austerity. A 2024 survey found that 24 percent of community college students, 11 percent of California State University (CSU) students and 8 percent of University of California (UC) students experienced homelessness in the previous year. Among immigrant students, the percentages are even higher.

California is home to 255 billionaires and the world’s fourth-largest economy. Yet this immense wealth is hoarded by a tiny elite while the state refuses to guarantee housing for students already burdened with skyrocketing tuition and historic debt levels.

Defending AB 90, Jackson, a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), stated:

This bill confronts a harsh reality to many of our students who are sleeping in their vehicles or other displaced settings as they are unable to find affordable housing, and that’s jeopardizing their education. What I am proposing is practical, immediate relief—overnight parking programs that turn campus lots into safe, temporary havens while the state works on lasting solutions. There is, continues to be a growing need to help our students who are homeless to be stable in safe environments to be able to continue their education journey. This is meant to be a last resort. I represent two community college districts in my district, and yes, they also oppose this bill, but I represent the people that the community colleges are supposed to serve. I don’t represent institutions.

Jackson’s portrayal of AB 90 as an act of compassion, a “practical” measure designed to confront the crisis of student homelessness, marks a political decision by the Democratic Party to institutionalize mass deprivation rather than eliminate it. By transforming campus parking lots into official policy, the state accepts homelessness as a permanent reality of life while leaving untouched its root causes: skyrocketing rents, the privatization of education, prohibitive tuition and decades of bipartisan austerity, carried out above all by Democrats in California.

AB 90 does not secure “immediate relief,” it reflects the priorities of the ruling class. There is no guaranteed housing, no commitment to education as a social right. Instead, the state manages and normalizes poverty while developers, landlords and financial institutions continue to reap vast profits from the housing crisis. Jackson’s assurance that “lasting solutions” are forthcoming is a lie: after decades of uninterrupted Democratic control over California’s budget, inequality has only deepened and homelessness has reached record levels.

Jackson’s invocation of “safe environments” further exposes the real character of the bill. Under AB 90, students’ supposed “stability” means sleeping in cars under the surveillance of campus police and administrators, a regime of management and control. The state treats homelessness not as a social problem to be solved but as an inevitable condition to be swept under the rug.

That many community colleges themselves oppose the bill underscores its true character: it adapts higher education to the reality of mass poverty and resigns students to a future defined by austerity and debt.

The Democrats, who control every lever of state government, have overseen decades of cuts to student housing programs and higher education budgets, including financial aid, while billions have been diverted into police militarization and tax subsidies for corporations. AB 90 is the logical product of this policy orientation: treating the right to housing as permanently unattainable and institutionalizing car-dwelling as the “new normal.”

Jackson’s bill reflects broader Democratic policy across California, where homelessness is not being solved but monetized. Nowhere is this clearer than Los Angeles, where homelessness agencies have been defunded while billions in public resources are handed to private developers and politically connected contractors.

Earlier this year, the LA County Board of Supervisors cut over $300 million—more than one-third of the entire budget—from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), shifting control to a new county agency dominated by private partnerships.

Simultaneously, LAHSA’s budget for temporary housing vouchers—critical lifelines for unhoused families and students—was slashed by $46 million this year alone. Entire programs have been halted, leaving thousands stranded without assistance.

Meanwhile, Measure A, a half-cent sales tax passed on the promise of solving homelessness, has become a cash cow for private developers. While marketed as “affordable housing,” the bulk of Measure A funds are funneled into public-private partnerships where developers secure guaranteed profits while producing units unaffordable to most of the working class.

Governor Gavin Newsom has spearheaded homeless sweeps as encampments have been violently cleared, often under heavy police presence, funneling the unhoused into shelters or back onto the street.

On August 29, Newsom announced the launch of the State Action for Facilitation on Encampments (SAFE) Task Force, a coordinated multi-agency operation aimed at clearing homeless encampments in California’s 10 largest cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland and Fresno.

AB 90 draws on the experience of Long Beach City College’s pilot safe-parking program, which allows a handful of students to park overnight in a secure lot with access to Wi-Fi, restrooms and case-management services. While touted as a “success,” the program exposes the institutional acceptance of homelessness.

The state of California, with an annual GDP exceeding $5 trillion, now offers working-class students a parking space, a public bathroom and a security guard instead of a bed. This “solution” reduces students’ housing needs to a policing problem while depriving them of basic dignity.

By promoting such programs, the Democrats are shifting responsibility for social rights away from the state and onto students themselves, forcing them to navigate survival while burdened by debt and impossible tuition bills.

AB 90 must be understood within the context of Trump’s ongoing coup in Washington D.C., now expanding to Chicago, and the broader repressive trajectory of the state. The housing crisis and AB 90 cannot be separated from the escalating attacks on immigrants, many of whom are students in California’s colleges and universities. At the federal and local levels, mass deportations and militarized raids have intensified, deepening insecurity for immigrant youth.

The California Democratic Party has no intention of addressing the causes of homelessness. Its role is to institutionalize social misery and defend the system that produces it. It is the oldest political instrument of US imperialism and will continue to impose policies that deepen inequality while protecting private wealth.

The right to housing, education, healthcare and safety cannot be secured under capitalism. It requires the independent mobilization of the working class—students, immigrants and workers alike—against both capitalist parties and for a socialist transformation of society.