Student financial aid programs including the Cal Grant Program, the Chafee Educational, and Training Vouchers Program, the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Community Service Scholarship Program, the California State Work-Study Program, the Middle-Class Scholarship Program, and the California DREAM Loan Program, require students to make satisfactory academic progress to qualify. The Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012 and the Community Colleges Student Success Completion Grant program also require that a student make satisfactory academic progress.
This bill requires that determinations of “satisfactory academic progress” by the institutions participating in these student aid programs consider homelessness as an extenuating circumstance for students who are otherwise unable to meet the requirements deemed to constitute “satisfactory academic progress.” Extenuating circumstances may be considered by the institution to alter or excuse compliance with progress requirements.
This bill borrowed the definition of “homeless” from the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which defines a “homeless individual” as:
An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence;
An individual with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodation for human beings;
An individual living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter;
An individual who resided in a shelter or place not meant for human habitation and who is exiting an institution where he or she temporarily resided; or
An individual who will imminently lose their housing as evidenced by:
◦ A court order;
◦ The individual having a primary nighttime residence that is a room in a hotel or motel and they lack the resources necessary to reside there for more than 14 days;
◦ Credible evidence indicating that the owner or renter of the housing will not allow the individual to stay for more than 14 days; or
◦ Any oral statement from an individual seeking homeless assistance that is found to be credible.
(AB 2416 amends Sections 69432.7, 69519, 69731, 69956, 70032, 78220, 88931 of the Education Code.)