USF Student Secures Campus Housing for Immigrants

Alvarado went well beyond a list. She approached the university and worked with an interfaith nonprofit to house 10 immigrants on campus this summer for eight weeks as they learn English and prepare to seek asylum.

“I’m in awe of Kemelyn and can’t think of a more impactful fellowship project,” said Richard Whipple, deputy director of the San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA).

As a Leo T. McCarthy Fellow assigned to the OCEIA at City Hall last fall, Alvarado, a politics major, worked for Whipple, who suggested the housing project. She stayed on through the spring semester and created the program at USF with the support of the Office of Student Housing. She modeled it after a national effort called Every Campus a Refuge, in which campuses host refugees or immigrants.

“I just thought ‘Why not my university?’ especially because USF is a Jesuit university,” said Alvarado, a first-generation student from Georgia. “We’re right in the city, and it seemed like such a good opportunity to connect USF to the broader San Francisco community.”

The 10 immigrants journeyed from Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, said the Rev. Deborah Lee, executive director of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (IMHI), based in Oakland. The organization paid a discounted rate to USF for the housing in Loyola Village.

“They get some stability, and the housing is a huge benefit,” Lee said. “The example of USF extending hospitality and opening the doors and taking what people perceive as a risk serves to inspire others, and we appreciate it.”

The asylum-seekers have a long road ahead of them, Lee said, and the IMHI is asking people in the Bay Area to hire them for construction, gardening, and computer repair jobs.

In addition to the housing project, Alvarado helped develop internships for USF graduate students in migration studies and global studies (formerly international studies). Three interns are now working with IMHI to help the asylum-seekers find food banks, take them to health clinics for health appointments, show them how to use public transportation in the city, partner with nonprofits that provide legal support, and find permanent housing and work opportunities.

Alvarado embodies the Jesuit mission of accompaniment, said Angeline Vuong, associate director of community engagement and public service programs at the McCarthy Center. 

“I find her to be an incredibly special student who really lives and breathes service as an act of love,” Vuong said.

A member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at USF who graduated in May as a military officer,  Alvarado is in officer training this summer at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Her future includes military service and then a focus on helping immigrants, she said.

“I want to be an immigration lawyer, so this just seemed like a perfect project,” Alvarado said. “I could not have imagined this would have come out of my internship. I’m just so grateful that people took a chance on me and believed in me.”