“For most college students, the holiday break signifies refuge — a welcome opportunity for rest and comfort after a stressful semester. But not all students anticipate the opportunity to exchange their dorm rooms for their childhood bedrooms. School vacations pose a particularly impossible conundrum for students who — for reasons personal, financial or both — can’t return home and are forced to either pay a fee to remain in student housing or who are barred from doing so altogether.” …
Another issue that is not new. Before I met my husband (in the late 70s) he had been a homeless college student. A church pastor let him live in the basement for a while, then when he got enough financial aid to live in the dorms, he figured out how to become an RA when a spot came open at midyear. Then he was able to stay in the dorm when it closed for vacations. He worked at the waterfront for a summer camp for rich city kids, and talked the director into letting him come early and stay late to do all manner or grunt work so that he would have a place to stay during the few weeks on each end of summer between camp and school.
See this discussion http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/barnard-college/1838622-international-student-of-low-income-background-do-not-go-to-barnard-college-p1.html
Now that is something worth demanding admins change/ solve as opposed to some of the things being demanded recently, particularly if a school requires you to live on campus.
Yeah, this isn’t new. Every winter break and every summer I had to find a new housing solution because I couldn’t go to my parents’ house over breaks. (Long story.) The summer was a bit easier because I usually got some kind of summer job and subletting over the summer is fairly easy, but the winter break - aw, terrible. Nobody sublets anything for just a month, and even if they did, it’s hard to cover it. Being an RA didn’t solve the problem because RAs at many schools are still required to move out over winter breaks. I really wished my school would at least consider keeping the residence halls open during the winter break - I would’ve even paid an additional fee for that.