{"id":73555,"date":"2025-11-28T20:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/73555\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:39:08","slug":"panel-discussion-on-homelessness-at-fcc-the-rampage-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/73555\/","title":{"rendered":"Panel Discussion On Homelessness At FCC \u2013 The Rampage Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, professional advocates spoke to students at Fresno City College about unhoused problems and their experience on housing in a discussion panel on Nov. 18 in the Old Administration Building from 2 to 4:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

According to Dez Martinez, founder of \u201cWe are not Invisible,\u201d many people in Fresno have housing problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe currently have over 3,000 people sleeping on the streets of Fresno,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dez Martinez during her speech in the discussion panel on Nov. 18. (Photo by: Artem Tikhomirov<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Martinez had big problems with housing, and now that she understands what they are, she decided to establish her own organization \u201cWe are not Invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past 11 years I\u2019ve experienced homelessness, and during all that time I have started my own organization \u2018We are not Invisible\u2019 as a nonprofit organization here in Fresno,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

Monique Reina, senior program specialist in basic needs, has been at FCC for 10 years, and addressed her perspective on how homelessness has changed in relation to students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have a GPA requirement, and it\u2019s really ridiculous to require students\u2019 GPA, and we try to offer all around services,\u201d Reina said.<\/p>\n

This program offers more than emergency housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also expanded programs that offer not only emergency housing, we offer a rental support pathway, so we can support students for up to a year,\u201d Reina said.<\/p>\n

According to Reina, the mental health of students is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think mental health is something that we need to talk about more, and I think here at city college, so some of the changes that I\u2019ve seen is people just be more aware,\u201d Reina said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Monique Reina during her speech in the discussion panel on Nov. 18. (Photo by: Artem Tikhomirov<\/a>)<\/p>\n

According to Elliot Cook, a student at FCC, the program\u00a0 gave him a lot of opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing has been the best thing for me because they [FCC basic needs] gave me a big opportunity, I have a savings account, financially I\u2019m doing better and I\u2019ve been able to get a better job,\u201d Cook said. \u201cI hope this program happens to you guys and many who need it, and it really changed my life for the better and I am so grateful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Elliot Cook during his speech in the discussion panel on Nov. 18. (Photo by: Artem Tikhomirov<\/a>)<\/p>\n

According to Martinez, there is a 3% rise in the amount of people that are entering shelters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But according to panelists, conditions in regular shelters are bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can wash clothes only once a week and they give you a portion of food like for a little baby,\u201d Raul Rincon, a student at FCC, said.<\/p>\n

However, some agree that shelter conditions are much better than staying outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather be there than to be on the street where all the drugs are,\u201d Rincon said.<\/p>\n

FCC administration can be a solution to problems, according to Reina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe staff, the faculty administration and staff here at Fresno City College can be part of the solution, and we have available to students both on and off-campus a lot of times they have really great intentions,\u201d Reina said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, professional advocates spoke to students at Fresno City College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-73555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}