Housing Waitlist

So I’m most likely gonna be going to Humboldt state. I live in Southern California, about 12 hours away from the campus so I will definitely need housing at a dorm. My concern is that I am unable to pay for the application fee at the moment so I will have to pay later and end up receiving the second set of notifications on whether I receive a dorm and can pick housing or if I am on the wait list. By the time they send out the notifications, I will already have to have made my decision on whether or not I accept my admission offer. This worries me because if I don’t receive any dorm then I will be stuck committed to the school without a place to stay. I am just really scared on not getting a place to stay because I emailed them and they said they are on a first come first serve type thing. Any suggestions on what to do would be great. Does anyone have any experiences on being placed on wait list or what they did when they didn’t receive on campus housing and had nowhere to go regarding living with parents/other family? Any experience with Humboldt housing? Should I start looking at off campus housing? I’m looking for a job right now so maybe I can start saving for that? My teachers grandson goes there and she told me not to worry about housing that much as well as another friend told me they cater to freshmen when it comes to housing but I wasn’t sure. Should I just go to a different college? I know I most likely would have housing at Sacramento state and San Francisco state and I really like those schools. They even offer more than Humboldt in terms of just offering more languages I want to study. But at those schools I would most likely need to double major. The main reason I still want to go to Humboldt is because I got accepted into their EOP program and my AVID teacher said that it will be extremely helpful for me along with a friend is going there. IDK if I will get EOP at the other schools so i’m not sure what I should do.