Heading into his first semester this fall at Feather River College, Conor Robinson considered camping in a tent after struggling to find a 1-bedroom apartment he could afford.
Larissa Griffith found free housing her first semester, but it came with a catch: She was on call, 24 hours a day, including holidays, at her landlord’s farm.
In the town of Quincy, population 1,580, housing options are sparse for students in this rural community in Northern California. Demand has also grown, especially after the 2021 Dixie Fire, which tore through nearly a million acres of Sierra Nevada mountains and forest — about the size of Rhode Island — and destroyed hundreds of homes across the surrounding Plumas County.
Right after the fire, the state granted the college over $500,000 from the state to design solutions for the worsening student housing crisis, but it was a kind of “false hope,” said Carlie McCarthy, the college’s vice president of student services.
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