Wherever Grace Pavlock pursued a bachelor’s degree — in her native Texas or across the country — she would face the same hurdle, which she received help from a Bronx convent to overcome: “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, which is how she ended up staying at a Bronx convent. 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, regarding the support of the Bronx convent. “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 of the Bronx convent 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, which is where the Bronx convent steps in.

Read the full article about the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx by Nadra Nittle at The 19th.