Vital Emergency Shelter and Transitional Assistance to support Aggie House’ facility and operational costs by establishing a new shelter at Russell Park
By VINCE BASADA — campus@theaggie.org
The ASUCD Senate created a new subunit Thursday, Feb. 20, to expand transitional housing options for students in collaboration with Aggie House. ASUCD President Gaius Ilupeju also announced that ASUCD would begin renting a property at Russell Park to serve as a new transitional housing shelter in pursuit of this goal.
The Vital Emergency Shelter and Transitional Assistance (VESTA), a nod to the Roman goddess of the hearth and home, will be responsible for the budget of the Russell Park facility and will be tasked with collecting data on the causes of housing loss for UC Davis students and the outcomes of ASUCD advising.
It is a subdivision of the Housing Advising for Undergraduate Students (HAUS) unit, which largely focuses on connecting students to existing housing options.
“I hope we bring into the conversation what ASUCD could show other student governments is possible,” Christina Smith, a fourth-year political science — public service major and the chair of ASUCD’s Housing and Transportation Advocacy Committee (HTAC), said. “We are leading the forefront here with this charge.”
Aggie House, the celebrated transitional shelter for and managed by students, was created in 2021 by former ASUCD commissioners. It has served over 70 residents since opening and has served as a model for similar shelters at UC Los Angeles, University of Southern California and several other college campuses.
“The foundation and core values of Aggie House have always been inclusivity and collaboration,” Emely Marroquin, a fourth-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major and an Aggie House internal co-president, said at the meeting. “We’re so excited to have the opportunity to work with ASUCD and broaden our impact, not only through the capabilities of being able to house more residents but also by expanding our volunteer base.”
Additionally, VESTA’s creation and the Russell Park location will help relieve some of the shelter’s issues with financial reliance on grants, spatial constraints and lack of a permanent location, considering Aggie House has changed locations twice since its founding.
“Relying on grant funding has been extremely unstable for [us] and our efforts largely have focused on just trying to stay afloat and survive, rather than thrive,” Nikhi Sundarapandian, a fourth-year political science — public service major and an Aggie House external co-president, said. “We’re really looking forward to a potential collaboration.”
While HTAC and HAUS will both be involved with supporting and expanding Aggie House’s operations, Smith made it clear that ASUCD will still continue its own advocacy work.
“Our main thing is advocacy always,” Smith said. “We never want to have to do this work. Transitional shelters aren’t something that undergraduate students should have to worry about being involved with or going to.”
In a 2024 survey, 19% of UC Davis undergraduates reported that they were sometimes or often unable to pay their housing costs on time; 50% said that they had worried about being able to cover their housing costs.
VESTA was created under Senate Bill (SB) #55, which passed at the meeting unanimously and thereby partially integrated Aggie House with ASUCD. Senate Resolution #8 also passed, affirming the Senate’s commitment to allocate $80,000 to rent the Russell Park property for the 2025-26 academic year.
At the meeting, Ilupeju commented on housing and basic student needs becoming a new main focus of ASUCD in the future.
“If we were to think about ASUCD’s next big thing, especially as we go into the 2030s, I think this is it,” Ilupeju said of VESTA. “The direction we’ve been heading the last few years is working with campus partners to offer more robust services for students. That’s exactly what this does.”
ASUCD Pride Festival
During public comment, former ASUCD Senator Jacob Klein, a third-year political science – public service major, provided criticism of ASUCD’s leadership over the lack of hiring of a unit director of the Pride Festival Unit.
“If President Ilupeju, [Internal Vice President Aaminah] Mohammad and our executive branch as a whole want to demonstrate to the student body that they give a singular fuck about the LGBTQ+ community, they need to get their shit together,” Klein said. “When I was an ASUCD Senator for the last two years, I was one of the only LGBTQ+ identifying members of the table. I worked so hard to nearly double the budget of the Pride Unit to ensure that they could continue to implement effective projects for the UC Davis community. Unfortunately, none of these projects and none of these funds have been used as the Pride Unit does not currently have a unit director.”
Klein continued by expressing his frustrations with the actions of student leaders.
“ASUCD President Ilupeju and IVP Mohammad have not done shit to uplift our community,” Klein said. “You must take accountability for this oversight and explain what you are doing to ensure that ASUCD will host a Pride Festival this spring, and that you will not let us down at a time when our federal government and your administration already have.”
Ilupeju, in response, noted that the unit director vacancy had been posted multiple times since the start of the academic year, with few applicants. He also provided a defense for some of Klein’s criticisms of his administration.
“I think the assertion that we haven’t done anything for the LGBTQIA+ community and that we’ve just been sitting on our ass and watching this go by — that’s character assassination,” Ilupeju said. “I told [the Senate] that I’ve been working with the LGBTQIA Resource Center to get [human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)] and [sexually transmitted infection (STI)] mobile units here on campus. So you can criticize us for not doing enough for Pride, but to say that we’re not doing anything for the community is false.”
He also said that the Davis Pride Festival had approached ASUCD about possibly integrating the two events and criticized Klein, who had been a senator during the 2024 fall quarter, for not raising the issue while he was still a member of the table and a student official.
“We have a responsibility to represent ASUCD and make sure this association is functioning,” Ilupeju said. “But there are 20 people at this table, 14 voting members. You were [a] voting member all throughout fall and you’re now bringing it up in winter, when you’re not on the table. I’m taking blame on my end for not being more direct, but I need you to take responsibility as well because you swore an oath.”
Klein provided no response and left the meeting without further comment.
Other Senate Business
In non-housing matters, the Senate heard from the Environmental Policy and Planning Commission (EPPC) Audit Team on the Audit Sustainability Fund. The commission is encouraging units to exercise operations in a more sustainable manner and award sustainability bonuses to units demonstrating efforts on this front, in part to offset costlier alternatives. According to EPPC Commissioner Kelsey Meyer, a fourth-year environmental policy and planning major, EPPC is working on getting access to purchasing records and rating/grading purchasing sustainability. They plan on awarding these bonuses until the fund is depleted.
The table also heard six quarterly reports during the meeting, including from Whole Earth Festival Co-Directors Jaye Duckhart, a fourth-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major, and Katherine Krinsky, a fourth-year English major, who said that this year’s festival theme is “Earth to the People.”
KDVS General Manager Fritzi Kornstaedt, a fourth-year environmental engineering major, reported on challenges in preparing for the station’s move to the Silo this summer. Then, Campus Center for the Environment Acting Unit Director Arianna Blandon, a third-year environmental policy and planning major, spoke of recent remodeling done at the student garden and chicken coop.
Outgoing ASUCD Head Justice Katrine Lee, a fourth-year political science and Italian double major, also presented, alongside Justice Iman Tariq, a third-year sociology and political science double major, on the Judicial Council’s continued legislative review efforts.
The California Aggie’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Ponce, a fourth-year political science and philosophy double major, and Managing Editor Alyssa Crevoiserat, a third-year managerial economics major, also presented on recent updates at the paper.
The Senate posed questions on environmental concerns regarding the excess of print papers not picked up by students, with members of the table asking if it was possible to reduce the size of The Aggie’s distribution.
“The most sustainable option would be to produce the amount [of papers] that students will take,” EPPC Chair Annie Kanjamala said. “It just seems like, from our perspective, that there’s an overproduction of papers.”
In response, Ponce and Crevoiserat asserted that lowering the print volume, currently at 2,500 papers per issue, would “drastically” reduce advertising revenues; industry standard is 4,000 papers per issue. They did, however, say they were open to working with ASUCD officials on addressing the topic via other means.
Ilupeju also asked for projections on the paper’s advertising revenues, with Ponce estimating that the paper had reached some 50% of its fundraising goals.
“Advertising levels are lower than we want to be [at] right now,” Ponce said.
The last quarterly report was delivered by the External Affairs Commission, who Ilupeju commended for their productivity and work accomplished this quarter, including a flashlight distribution program.
In legislative matters, the Senate unanimously passed SB#50, allocating $819 for the ASUCD Ethical Spending Committee Public Seminar on Feb. 24, and SB#49, codifying and clarifying ASUCD bylaws regarding the Judicial Council.
The meeting began at 6:29 p.m. and ended at 9:43 p.m.
Note: The California Aggie, while an ASUCD unit and therefore responsible for giving quarterly reports to the Senate, operates separately from the student government and maintains editorial independence.
Written by: Vince Basada — campus@theaggie.org
