Spring 2015 | By Susan Frick

In Spring 2012, sophomore Shanequa Bernard stood on the Theatre UCF stage sporting a long skirt, mustard-gold blouse and a mood as jaunty as the beat playing in the background:

“Gettin’, Gettin’, Gettin’, Ready Rag”

The cast of men and women took turns dancing and catcalling as they urged a Harlem musician to follow his heart and dreams:

“You gotta find your girl, Coalhouse/ And win her back!”

“That was one of the best times of my life,” Bernard recalls now. The Bright Futures scholar was an ‘A’ student with a double major in theatre and legal studies and had won a role in the university production of “Ragtime.”

The high point was a long climb from her senior year of high school in Ellenton, Florida, where Bernard’s family became homeless after her mother lost her job. They moved from hotels to relatives’ homes; stability was lacking, and college represented a way out of that desperate situation. “I thought, ‘I’m doing exactly what I want to do with my life. I finally made it to college, and from here on everything is going to be wonderful.’ ”

Then the lights dimmed.

A year later, Bernard was struggling to play the role of a successful college student. She’d lost some financial aid, and her expenses piled up. Soon she couldn’t make rent. So she packed her belongings in two zebra-print suitcases and moved from student housing to a cheaper apartment she shared with three roommates. When she could no longer afford that, she slept on friends’ couches. “I’d go to school every day with a smile on my face while I wondered where I was going to sleep at night,” she remembers.

Fighting to manage the demands of school, a part-time retail job and her uncertain housing situation, Bernard stopped participating in theater and other activities. She considered dropping out of school altogether. But another voice told her to keep going, that nothing — not even homelessness — would prevent her from earning her degree. “Because you’re not just doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for your family,” she says.

Bernard wasn’t alone. An estimated 58,000 college students across the nation (and about 3,500 in Florida) reported being homeless in 2013 on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Determined to improve their lives through higher education, they slept in cars or shelters, camped in the woods, couch surfed or sought shelter in darkened campus buildings. Determining accurate statistics on homelessness is difficult, but at UCF, advocates are working to document this invisible population so the university can find ways to better serve those facing a financial crisis.