WITH THE issuing of decisions on who and who will not be on the Lawn last Friday, there are now some jilted third-year students who will be seeking out housing this week.
If you know one of these people, wish them good luck. Not only do they have to negotiate the already-complicated leasing landscape, but they are getting a late start.
But for each one of these people, there are no doubt countless others of all years who have dealt with their housing issues earlier, but have still dealt with headaches.
Thanks to the efforts of Student Council representatives Greg Moore and Marisa Nelson, this hopefully won't be the case in the future. Their proposed Off-Grounds Housing Office is a promising new initiative, and will show results in the coming year and even more so in years to come as the University community continues to grow.
Housing at the University, both on and off Grounds, is a hassle. Even a first-year student, after five months of time here, could tell you that. From trying to sign a lease on a house in the Rugby-14th Street corridor or drawing a suite in Lambeth, arranging for housing is a frustration on level with final exams.
While much of on-Grounds housing might be undesirable or downright unlivable (ask last year's residents of Bice -- that is, the ones that successfully dodged the falling bricks), those issues pale in comparison to the problems off-Grounds residents face: Slick and unresponsive landlords, lack of available desirable housing and having to sift through mountains of unsorted information from a multitude of sources.
These problems will only be exacerbated when the University's share of the 60,000 additional in-state students expected by the State Council of Higher Education to enroll in Virginia institutions over the next 10 years arrive.
While Virginia legislators promise to keep the University's portion of this student growth low so as to not face California-type problems (they expect a 43 percent growth rate over 10 years for the UC system alone), the facts are inescapable; more students at the University plus existing off-Grounds housing problems equals a crisis. Action needs to be taken now to prevent a worse situation.
The proposed Off-Grounds Housing Office seems to be the best answer. If effectively implemented this year, the office could mitigate our current situation as well as head off future problems in a number of ways. By collectivizing the interests of students living off Grounds into one administrative office, residents would gain clout with the landlords in working out problems.
For example, Charlottesville's landlords are notoriously poor in terms of performing repairs and maintenance. A housing office would be a valuable go-between to make sure these needs are met. Landlords would feel more pressure to comply, as their reputation and working relationship with the office and not just individual students would be on the line.
For students searching for housing, the Off-Grounds Housing Office would be invaluable in sorting through the mountains of information on availabilities, types of leases and other confusing parts of the housing process. Gone would be the days of browsing bunches of out-of-date Web sites for openings or calling landlords about properties that were leased out months ago. Presumably, a student could go into the office, give search terms and look at a list of properties compiled from all landlords, helping both information-hungry students and landlords with property to lease.
Many details still need to be worked out this semester with regard to the Off-Grounds Housing Office. A budget needs to be set, and will hopefully be finalized within the month; a director needs to be hired, and they will be responsible for implementing a plan in a quick time period. It also remains to be seen how relations will work between the office and local landlords, though as described there exist incentives for their cooperation.
But with the off-Grounds situation as bad as it is, and set to become worse, a new office could only improve the state of housing for University students.
(Jim Prosser's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jprosser@cavalierdaily.com)
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