Napa Valley Register

September 21, 2022

Edward Booth

A group of roughly 50 local officials gathered Wednesday morning at a cordoned-off dirt construction zone, just north of the Napa Valley College campus, to celebrate the now-proceeding construction of the 588-bed River Trail Village student housing complex, set to be finished just in time for the 2024 school year.

The groundbreaking ceremony — actual construction kicked off in August — featured a series of speakers. They talked, as construction vehicles worked with an occasional mechanical clamor in the background, about how providing affordable housing to NVC students will bring great benefits amid the local lack of housing.

Torence Powell, NVC superintendent and president since July, noted that a large part of providing a comprehensive academic program is making sure students have their basic needs covered. If students consistently know where they’re going to sleep, how they’ll get to class, and they have secure access to food, then those questions don’t impact their ability to focus on their schoolwork.

Powell called the housing project “a physical manifestation of our investment in students and our investment in the future.”

“Research consistently shows the correlational impact housing and food security have on student success,” he said. “Students are more likely to be successful and complete college when they live on campus, particularly when their campus experience builds learning relationships and encourages student engagement.”

Napa Valley College Board of Trustees President Jeff Dodd said that he was personally able to benefit from the affordable schooling offered by NVC. He also benefitted from affordable housing, he noted, by living with his parents while attending the college.

But when Dodd moved away to attend UC Santa Barbara and the University of the Pacific for law school, he racked up student loan debt. And a large portion of that debt was directly connected to having to pay for the high cost of housing, Dodd said.

The greatest aspect of the housing project, Dodd said, is that the rooms offered will truly be affordable for students, owing in part to a $31 million state of California grant — one part of a larger, $1.4 billion program to expand student housing at California’s public colleges.

Those funds will be used primarily to make the housing affordable for the greatest amount of low-income students, who represent roughly 40% of the NVC student population, the college has previously stated.

Jorge Alejandre-Martinez, the student trustee for the NVC board, said he knows firsthand the pressure many students go through. He personally works part time and attends school full-time, he said. The student housing complex will serve as a “game changer,” he noted, because some of the pressure of paying monthly rent will be alleviated.  

State Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) — Jeff Dodd’s father — said everyone present at the ceremony knew how tough it was to find housing anywhere in the city of Napa. It’s also difficult to find housing throughout the six counties and 22 cities he serves, he added.

“Everybody knows, in the state of California and in Napa, that we’re in a housing crisis,” Dodd said. “Not just here in Napa, but throughout our region. And young people really have it the hardest, in my view.”

The student housing project will also help ease some of the pressure on Napa’s housing market, Dodd noted, by moving many of the students who otherwise would have lived in the city’s housing supply into the student housing complex.

Siria Martinez, assistant vice chancellor for student equity and success at California Community Colleges, said she spoke to NVC students last fall, and many of them had to deal with unstable housing.

“What I heard at that time, during those meetings, was how they were battling unstable housing, how they were struggling to pay their rent, Martinez said. “Some students even described the length they go, by traveling from Fairfield or Vacaville, the Bay Area, just to get to campus. So we recognize the need to have this project at this time.”

Jim Reeves, NVC assistant superintendent, noted that the construction had started up owing to the efforts of many people to overcome several obstacles. Those obstacles included changes in college leadership, various delays, rising interest rates, supply change challenges, and a demanding construction schedule, he said.

“There were moments when many wondered if the project would ever happen,” Reeves said. “But thankfully, there were many here at the college, and among our partners, who believed in the project and went to extraordinary lengths to get us to this day.”