Next Saturday marks one year that I’ve been drawing attention to an unjust law that leaves fulltime college students without a safety net, sentencing them to live at 40% below poverty for the rest of their lives.
High performing students who don’t have safe family to fall back on, discover they cannot live on their own due to this unjust law when invisible disability strikes—and roommate after roommate ask them to leave because they aren’t pulling their weight or ask for too much help. Those who experience intersectionality beyond invisible disability, such as being a part of the LGBTQ community, are even further marginalized, traumatized and vulnerable. What are they to do?
How many families do you know who have taken in a chronically ill person to care for them? Some will say, that’s what we have affordable housing for: wait lists are years long postcovid. Some will say that’s why we have in home care providers in some states, like Oregon. I have a friend with a terminal condition who can’t get help she needs because of a provider shortage. Some might say they aren’t trying hard enough to get better. But I wonder, would they say that of Ivy League grads who earn double masters? Of PhD grads? Of 4.0 high school grads? Hard workers with every reason to try their hardest…to get better? These are the people I know personally who’ve been sentenced by this unjust law.
On June 26th, next Sunday, I will seal a yearlong sacrifice of walking barefoot and wearing black, symbolic of their plight, in fasting and prayer for a remedy to this injustice. I pray that our missed-takes of the past can be replaced with understanding and compassion, and that equity can become a part of their lives. Will you join me in prayer, or in action, to create a safety net for these college students?
