Campus Village 3 Affordability

• What makes CV3 an "affordable housing" project?

  • Senate Bill 169, signed into law in 2021, created the Higher Education Student Housing Grant Program (HESH) which reserved at least 30% of new funding from the State to the CSU for new student housing development. SB169 required deeply-affordable rental rates for universities to receive funding for their new housing projects. Specifically, rental rates are capped at 30% of 50% of the area median income for single-room occupancy units. For units in Santa Clara County, where the median income for single wage-earners is $105,900 (as of 2022), this would entail rental rates of $1,323 per month.

    The CV3 project as a whole goes above and beyond the statutory requirements of affordable student housing by lowering rental rates far below the figure cited above to be more affordable for students in need. Early estimated rental rates for student beds funded through the CV3 effort are 57% of the state’s maximum levels. This underscores SJSU’s commitment to keeping students’ housing costs down and allowing them to focus on their educational aspirations.

    The state budget in 2022 allocated a sizable share of funding to the CSU for campus student housing projects. Pending changes to the future state budget aside, SJSU is continuing the process of applying for grant funding to deliver CV3.

• Will every unit in this project be “affordable housing”?

  • The CV3 project effort includes the application of state funds to around 535 deeply-affordable below-market rate student beds. These beds will be included in CV3 as well as other parts of SJSU’s campus housing stock. State funding will enable SJSU to deeply discount the cost of rent for student-leased, on-campus dormitory beds, which in turn allows students to focus on their academic success instead of  housing or commute concerns.

     

• Why isn’t every bed in the new project “affordable”?

  • It is important, for equity purposes, that the new building have a diverse mix of subsidized and unsubsidized units to ensure a positive educational and living environment for all SJSU students. Projects in the area that incorporate a mix of incomes in the same property ensure robust community integration while also guaranteeing project feasibility. Spreading the beds throughout the housing system, including in already-built, existing buildings, will also ensure students have access to unit types that will best meet their needs.    

• What kind of students will qualify to live at CV3?

  • Students in the building will be required to take a minimum average of 12 degree-applicable units per semester term. Eligible students renting housing in the facilities shall be permitted to live in the facilities for the full academic or calendar year so long as the student remains enrolled, but renewal of housing in the facility in subsequent years requires the student to demonstrate compliance with unit requirements.

    As the project is still in its earliest planning stages, no decision has been made as to the programmatic allocation of the building complex's residents in the way that other Campus Village buildings have set numbers of undergraduates and graduate students per location.

• How does this project meet the university’s equity goals?

  • High housing costs in Silicon Valley push out students to far-flung suburbs where they have no choice but to drive long distances to campus if public transit is either not an option or infeasible for their schedules. The additional spaces on-campus will allow more students to avoid having to commute long hours and provide a secure space which will help them access the additional campus resources they might not have time to access if a commute were a part of their everyday schedule. Creating more student housing also fosters a stronger support network on campus that our displaced students cannot tap into as a consequence of having to commute due to living far from the university.

• How will this project benefit the community at large?

  • SJSU ensures a large number of California residents have access to an affordable and high-quality education. SJSU’s location in the heart of Silicon Valley presents the perennial challenge to each cohort of students: housing costs as the number one risk to a student reaching their educational potential. As one indicator, rent levels have risen 6% per year for the last 10 years and this trend does not appear to have a discernible peak anytime in the foreseeable future. 

    SJSU has maintained residential rates as low as possible to ensure a student housing stock that is not out of reach for the community. Having additional affordable housing stock will enable SJSU to serve this incredibly important mission, avoid adding substantial debt loads and allow additional, lower income students to benefit from attending the most transformational education institution in America (per Money Magazine, 2020). Keeping students on campus also helps to alleviate the pressures on non-student renters seeking housing on the open market in surrounding neighborhoods.

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