Wherever Grace Pavlock pursued a bachelor’s degree — in her native Texas or across the country — she would face the same hurdle: “I was always going to be on that cusp of homelessness and not having a place to stay.”
Staying with family was not an option, and she couldn’t afford dormitory expenses. Still, she dreamed of attending school in New York City. She set her sights on the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, a Catholic institution that offered the major she planned to pursue — public policy — and, she said, “a beautiful campus.”
“It honestly was like the perfect fit,” Pavlock said. “Everything was great and wonderful, except for the fact that there was no way I was going to be able to afford it at all.”
Then, Pavlock learned about the university’s Dax House, a residence serving housing-insecure college women. For just $250 a month, students like her secure a private room, a permanent address they can use to access social services and a case manager to help them navigate challenges like health insurance coverage and career planning. The support allowed Pavlock, who had earned an associate’s degree in Texas, to be a full-time college student without constantly worrying about how she might pay for food, a roof over her head and other necessities.
The 22-year-old rising senior is not an anomaly. According to the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, a research center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, nearly half of college students are housing insecure, and one in seven are homeless. Many such students have already overcome barriers just to enroll in university. They are often from underrepresented backgrounds and the first in their families to attend college. Then, they might discover that their financial aid packages do not cover room and board. All this, compounded, makes them more likely to drop out of school.
The University of Mount Saint Vincent seeks to change outcomes for housing-insecure students through Dax House, in partnership with the Sisters of Charity of New York and the homeless services nonprofit Depaul USA. The Dax Program, a national housing program Depaul USA began in 2015 to combat student homelessness, operates four residences in New York City and serves more than 90 students annually nationwide in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
The collaboration goes beyond offering students a bed, school officials say. It offers them the support they need to complete their higher education and build a foundation for the rest of their lives. And unlike traditional dorm rooms that need to be vacated during school breaks, students can live in Dax House year-round. Pavlock has been spending much of her time there this summer, updating her resume to apply for fall internships with state lawmakers.
“We recognize that when students come to us, they come to us as a whole person,” said Susan R. Burns, president of the University of Mount Saint Vincent, which has a student body of 4,225. “Things like housing or lack of housing can affect their ability to show up fully for their studies. Students may be absolutely academically capable, but can’t fully engage in college because they’re worried about where they’re going to sleep.”
The University of Mount Saint Vincent has long prioritized housing-insecure students, serving them primarily through the Mott Street Scholarship Program, which launched a decade ago and covers tuition, fees and housing for students who have aged out of foster care or experienced homelessness as children. But school officials realized that even students who didn’t qualify for that scholarship faced housing insecurity and could easily become homeless without dedicated support.
The Sisters of Charity of New York, a congregation of sisters in the Catholic Church, had an idea. They owned Rosary Hall, a two-story building on campus. Since they rarely used the first floor, they decided to offer it to vulnerable students. After undergoing renovations including new flooring, fresh paint, an upgraded kitchen and a spacious living room overlooking the Hudson River, Dax House opened with a ribbon-cutting on August 13, 2024. Eight women — juniors, seniors and recent graduates — lived on the first floor last school year while the sisters resided on the second floor. Undergraduate women far outnumber men at the University of Mount Saint Vincent — 2,222 to 748, respectively.
Although many colleges offer emergency housing, food pantries or motel vouchers to students, these interventions are short-term. Dax House aims to give housing-insecure students stability with its wraparound services, including year-round housing so they have somewhere to stay during winter, spring and summer breaks. Undergraduates can stay at Dax House for up to 24 months, while recent graduates can stay for an additional year if needed as a bridge between their studies and their careers.
“It’s not just that we provide a safe, clean space for you to be,” said Mel Reyes, Dax Program director for New York City at Depaul USA. “There are others that are students just like you and have a level of hardship just like you. And then our case management — they meet at minimum once or twice a month with the case manager who helps them talk about goals and helps them talk about needs.”
A case manager helps students with tasks such as obtaining access to SNAP benefits, creating budgets and applying for internships — life skills that may prevent them from becoming housing insecure in the future. “Sometimes what goes hand in hand with not having housing is not having food and not having medical care and not knowing where to go,” Reyes said.
A number of factors contribute to housing insecurity among the college-aged population. Many relate to family instability: Students with deceased, incarcerated or abusive family members are at risk. Others have experienced housing insecurity after fleeing from domestic violence.
Pavlock, who grew up an hour north of Houston, said that after her father died when she was in high school, she moved in with her grandparents. Her mother lived elsewhere. However, since both of her grandparents were retired, they couldn’t financially support her.
She describes her background as “rough,” with multiple family members who did not complete their education beyond middle or high school. The period before she enrolled at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and entered Dax House was “troubling,” she said. “The amount of havoc that was going through my life and trying to figure out all this on my own was just insane because nobody in my family has ever been to college. No one knows what a FAFSA is. No one knows how hard it is to actually get scholarships and stuff like that.”
Although housing insecurity and homelessness are not uncommon for college students, the issue often goes overlooked, according to Robin Knox, development director for Depaul USA. Students experiencing these issues don’t necessarily stand out from their peers. They show up to class, participate in discussions and turn in papers, even while struggling to get their basic needs met.
“It’s definitely a hidden issue,” Knox said. “Students don’t want to readily share their challenges. They don’t want to be looked at as not having resources compared to their peers. It’s been partially not wanting to disclose that information, not feeling like there are resources available, and there’s a little bit of — ‘I can figure it out on my own.’”
In recent years, however, soaring tuition and living costs have drawn more attention to the housing struggles of college students. Dropping out of college only puts these students in more danger of experiencing economic instability. In contrast, most students living in Dax House find employment, move into permanent housing, stay in school or graduate, school officials said.
“This is not just an issue of providing a bed,” Burns said. “It’s about changing students’ trajectory and helping them prepare for the future beyond their time at the university.”
As college enrollment has dropped precipitously since 2010, retaining students is imperative, according to Reyes.
“There is a demographic cliff happening,” she said. “In the next few years, there will not be enough people applying to colleges. Retention has become that much more important. The Dax Program is really part of that solution.”
One student, a high school valedictorian, arrived at the University of Mount Saint Vincent’s Dax House on the verge of entering a city shelter. She received a room, a $100 grocery stipend and a case manager who helped her secure SNAP benefits. She lived in the house for six months while working part-time; Dax House residents must work at least 10 hours per week to cover the $250 monthly rent ($350 for graduate students), which part-time jobs or work-study positions allow them to do easily. That former resident is now a pediatric nurse making $80,000 a year, according to a university spokeswoman.
Pavlock intends to create a similar future for herself, only she wants to work in government. “I want to do public policy and help people who can’t help themselves,” she said.
Being a Dax House resident has allowed her to participate in multiple campus clubs, get involved in a mentorship program and take on internships. She’s interned for Broadridge, a global technology company, deepening her knowledge of finance and policy. She also served as a social media intern for Depaul USA.
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m just so good at Canva,” she said, with a laugh, of the graphic design platform.
She’s advocated for sexual assault awareness as part of her on-campus job for the Wellness Cove, which focuses on student health and well-being. She has served as treasurer of the Model United Nations as well as a senator for the Class of 2027 in the Student Government Association.
Without Dax House, she said, she wouldn’t have discovered her latent skills or taken on other activities. “I’d just be working 40 hours a week,” Pavlock said. “I would not be in any clubs. I wouldn’t have any other kind of on-campus jobs or internships.”
The Dax House model is replicable, but it requires partnerships and resources.
“Funding is a large part of it,” Burns said. “Depaul USA is a nonprofit organization. They do fundraising to secure the funding necessary to provide the case managers, the residential support, and so forth. But also, they need partners in that space. The reality is, there are not enough people lobbying to change the system.”
That’s not the only challenge. Not all higher education institutions believe they have a responsibility to support housing-insecure students — even though research indicates that students who have reliable housing become more engaged on their campuses and are more likely to complete their studies.
“I can’t tell you one person that’s in my house specifically that is not an amazing leader on campus, who’s not in three to four different clubs, who’s not doing three different things on campus at one time,” Pavlock said. “We’re so ingrained on campus that if other universities were to have a program like ours, they would see these crazy leaders emerge — because we’re given the ability to do so.”
