Starting college is hard enough on its own. But starting college while living on the streets? That’s a whole other level of stress and uncertainty.

Juan Maruffo knows what that’s like. Toward the end of his senior year of high school, Maruffo’s dad lost his job as a mechanic and the family wound up sleeping on the streets for several months just as he was enrolling at Mission College in Santa Clara.

“Sometimes I didn’t have enough sleep,” he said. “Sometimes I wouldn’t eat…It was just hard. I couldn’t tell my friends what I was going through.”

Now several years later, the family has a home and Maruffo is a student at San Jose State University. But rent keeps going up and Maruffo balances a part-time job with homework to help his parents cover the bills.

He’s keenly aware of how tenuous everything is and doesn’t want to end up as one of more than 4,000 students at San Jose State who have found themselves homeless in the last year, or approximately 13 percent of those enrolled, according to a report from California State University.

From San Jose City College to places like UC Berkeley and elementary schools in East Palo Alto, student homelessness is a problem. And Santa Clara County has thousands of homeless residents of all ages struggling to get by.

To tackle the problem locally, Maruffo and a group of other students at San Jose State decided to form the Student Homeless Alliance. Their goal: to make sure students who don’t have stable housing have the support they need to succeed in college.

The university has said it will work to house all homeless students and explore long-term solutions like more dorms. But the student group is frustrated by what it views as a lack of more immediate support for students who don’t have a place to sleep tonight or tomorrow.

With student activists now bringing the stunning figure of homeless students to light, the Student Homeless Alliance has rallied support from the highest levels of City Hall and is hoping it will put more pressure on university leaders to take immediate action.

In his recent March budget message, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said he wanted to work with the university to address student homelessness, in part by expanding emergency assistance grants to help more students at risk of becoming homeless. And in a recent letter to university president Mary Papazian, four council members — Vice Mayor Chappie Jones, Raul Peralez, Magdalena Carrasco and Maya Esparza — thanked her for committing to house all homeless students and said the city and university should work together to find solutions.

“For many, attending college is a means to disrupt the cycle of poverty,” the council members wrote. “But when a student has to worry about finding a place to sleep, it becomes extremely difficult for them to focus on their academics and succeed in school.”

Papazian was not immediately available for an interview. In a statement, the university said, “San Jose State University remains committed to partnering with the city of San Jose, students and the community to identify and implement sustainable, long-term solutions that address student housing needs.”

When the Student Homeless Alliance met with Papazian several weeks ago, several members of the group said, they pushed for designated parking spots where students could safely park and sleep in their cars overnight, as well as more dorm rooms set aside for emergency housing needs. The school indicated it wanted to focus on investing in better, long-term solutions, but was vague about specifics and timelines, the students said. The school has a one-stop resource for students in crisis called SJSU Cares, which runs on a case-by-case basis, but the Student Homeless Alliance wants more specific, system-wide information on exactly what students can expect to receive when they ask for help.

“I think the administration is a little disconnected from the students they serve,” said Alejandro Mayorga, one of the students.

Mayra Bernabe, another student, said she appreciated the support from council members.

“That was a big thing for them to come forward,” Bernabe said. “To know that our leaders are acknowledging the work and saying this is an issue that has to be addressed, that speaks volumes.”

Jennifer Loving, the CEO of Destination: Home, a nonprofit aimed at ending homelessness, has spoken both with members of the Student Homeless Alliance and the university administration, and she’s deeply connected at City Hall. Student homelessness at San Jose State is one aspect of a much bigger problem, she said.

“We have one of the highest rates of homelessness in the whole nation,” Loving said. “There’s no reason to think students would be immune from that.”

Solving the issue, she added, will take collaboration from everyone involved, from the city to the school. Prevention, such as emergency grants for people about to losing housing, is key, along with increasing the supply of housing for very low-income individuals and families. The city, she noted, has permitted only 13 percent of the affordable housing the state mandates it produce by 2022.

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San Jose State University opens new wildfire research center “Every jurisdiction needs to be prioritizing extremely low-income housing,” Loving said. “I do think the university is very interested in figuring out their piece of the solution. It’s very much on their radar.”

For now, the Student Homeless Alliance says it will keep directing students in need toward SJSU Cares, the one-stop shop on campus for addressing such emergencies, and pushing for more resources. When Papazian delivers her annual state of the university speech in early April and lays out her priorities, the group said, it wants to hear more on how the school — with help from the city and other partners — plans to address student homelessness.

“I hope,” Bernabe said, “that our issue is in the top two of their list.”