ONE COUNTY, TWO UNIVERSITIES, ONE HOUSING CRISIS

ONE COUNTY, TWO UNIVERSITIES, ONE HOUSING CRISIS

A county is more than the lines drawn upon a map.
It is a shared home.

Its rivers do not ask whether they flow beside public or private land.
Its morning light does not distinguish between one campus and another.

Its sky shelters every roof—and every place where no roof can be found. Within the same county stand two universities.

Each teaches.
Each discovers.
Each dreams of a better future.

Yet beyond their lecture halls, another lesson quietly waits to be learned. One student studies beneath the glow of a library lamp.

Another studies beneath the dim light inside a parked car.
One walks home to a dormitory.
Another wonders where home will be before the sun rises again.

Both carry textbooks.
Both carry hope.
Both belong to the same community.

Housing does not recognize the difference between public and private education.

The cost of rent asks no one which university issued the student identification card.

The night is equally cold.
The uncertainty is equally heavy.
And hope is equally precious.

Perhaps this is the lesson the land has been teaching all along.
A county cannot divide its conscience.

Its universities may differ in history, governance, wealth, and resources, but they breathe the same air, depend upon the same community, and help shape the same future.

The measure of higher education is not only found in discoveries that change the world. It is also found in whether those discoveries help make room for the neighbor.

For knowledge reaches its highest purpose when it remembers the human being.

Land reaches its highest purpose when it becomes a place of belonging.

Wealth reaches its highest purpose when it opens doors that would otherwise remain closed.

One day, rankings will change.

Buildings will rise.
Technologies will become obsolete.
Even the names engraved upon stone will fade with time.

But history will remember something greater.
It will remember whether two great universities, sharing one county and one housing crisis, also shared one conviction—that no student should have to search for shelter while searching for truth.

For the finest campus is not merely the one that reaches highest in achievement, but the one that bends lowest in compassion.

And when that day comes,
the county itself will become a classroom,
its universities will become neighbors,
and education will discover that its greatest degree
has always been stewardship,
its highest honor,
love.

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
July 9, 2026

*In 2023, San José State University (SJSU) saw multiple student-led demonstrations as data revealed the city held the highest number of homeless young adults per capita nationwide. Now, those waves have all vanished. Just as the homeless camps on the streets were cleared away...
*In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can legally clear homeless encampments and penalize people for sleeping outdoors, even if no alternative shelter space is available. In a landmark 6-3 decision for the case Grants Pass v. Johnson, the conservative majority overturned a lower court's ruling. The Court determined that local anti-camping ordinances do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment".