Just $500 Gave Eliza Safety and a Fresh Start

"I believe very strongly that without that support I would have had to stay in the same abusive environment I had been in, and I most likely would not have made it past the first year of college.” 

This is how Eliza, a biology major at West Valley College, talks about the impact of the money she received from the Emergency Assistance Program. She started at West Valley in summer 2024, two years after finishing high school.

It was difficult, Eliza says, balancing academics and work, while living in an abusive situation at home. She was able to leave that environment but bounced around for a bit, from a hotel room to transitional housing to back home. 

Then, $500 in emergency funds helped Eliza get her car fixed so she could move out again and commute to campus for classes. She eventually found an apartment of her own, but the first few months were rocky as she struggled to pay her rent. Her physical health suffered, as did her mental health and her academics. "It really affected my mental health a lot, and I started being unable to attend class," says Eliza. 

After stabilizing her living situation, she was able to get a work-study job on campus and is working toward an associate degree in biology with the hope of transferring to a four-year university.

“It’s been a journey,” Eliza says. “It’s really scary to see how much instability affects everything. I’ve faced a lot of insecurity with housing, I had a lot of food instability, and stuff like that. I’m most likely not the only one on campus that has been struggling, I’m not the only who has dealt with housing instability, food instability, financial instability. This money might seem like a little, but it really does change someone’s life because we never truly know what someone is going through.”