Students at UCSD Hustle for Housing
It was the ideal student setup, in most ways.
He lived on Torrey Pines Road at the heart of the UCSD campus, say other students who observed his comings and goings. He showered in the gymnasium, did his laundry on campus, and had a job in the cafeteria, where there was plenty of food.
The rent was the best feature of all: $67.50 for the academic year. That was the price of the campus parking permits for his white Volkswagen bus, where they say he lived for most of last year.
This month, 11,850 undergraduates descend upon UC San Diego--conveniently located in the heart of some of the priciest communities in one of the fastest growing cities in North America.
Less than one-third of the students will fit in dormitories and apartments on campus. That leaves up to 8,000 undergraduates--not to mention graduate students and others--faced with finding affordable digs in an area that has no student ghetto.
A few will give up and go home, if history holds true. Others will take in weird roommates or pay through the nose. Some may land the perfect party pad on the beach, but last week, few students were holding their breath.
“Terrible,” groaned Karen Armstrong, surveying the prospects. “Really Mission Impossible.”
To help out, the UCSD Office of Off-Campus Housing has turned house-hunting into an academic discipline. Now one of the largest rental referral agencies in San Diego, it runs a virtual mini-semester in basic real-estate market survival.
Students are urged to start looking a month early, and attend seminars on the scary similarities between leases and other contracts. There’s even recommended reading--texts like “What I Should Know Before I Rent” and “How to Read your SDG&E; Bill.”
There’s an emergency roommate hot line, and competition and anxiety levels worthy of pre-med chemistry. Failing the practical exam can have dire consequences--say, a semester sharing the back seat of a Mitsubishi.
Last week, the small bank of free phones at the housing office was busier than a Ticketron outlet with Bruce Springsteen tickets on sale.
“Hi. I was calling about the two-bedroom, two-bath you have for rent? October 1st? That’s a little too late for us. . . . Hi. I’m calling about the two-bedroom apartment for rent. Uh, unfurnished? Oh, it is? How much furniture is that? . . . Hi. My name is Mark. I’m looking for a place to live. Oh, you just did?”
Students’ problems fall into two major--and predictable--categories: There aren’t enough apartments, and they cost too much.
The most popular areas for students are the closest to the campus: University City, La Jolla, Del Mar, Pacific Beach and Clairemont. But those places have few vacancies and high rents, according to studies by the city and the university.
The citywide vacancy rate is 2.6%, according to the latest study by city planners. But it found rates of 2.5% or less in Pacific Beach, Clairemont and University City, and no vacancies in Del Mar.
The same study found no available units in La Jolla for less than $420 a month. A 1984 UCSD study found two-bedroom apartments and condominiums within a 20-minute drive averaging $577 and $759 a month, and three-bedroom apartments going for $970.
Students say the sellers’ market works against them: Landlords can afford to be choosey.
Some want women instead of men. Others rent to graduate students but not undergraduates. Some want a year’s lease, co-signed by parents, with references from past landlords. Others want no lease, or no students at all.
Perhaps to keep them out, students say, landlords insist on “first, last, and deposit”--the first and last months’ rent and a security deposit in the event the unit is damaged. Or, they limit the number of tenants to one per bedroom.
“There was one guy who seemed to be looking for girlfriends,” said Catherine Eichhorn, a junior majoring in history. “He said I could sleep on the couch for four months, then move into a room. He kept telling me about all the other women he had interviewed.”
Of course, there are other problems too.
Finding an apartment near a bus line can be difficult, and the bike ride from Del Mar can feel like the vertical stretches of the Tour de France. At a school where science is a big attraction, bus curfews put a crimp in late-night lab work.
Foreign and financial-aid students last week wrestled with fixed incomes, and fickle roommates complicated apartment plans. Julia Zarcone, who admits she is picky, was developing a theory that exterior bugs reflect an apartment’s interior condition.
“There were huge bumble bees and bugs outside the front door, and ants on the fig tree out back,” she said with emphatic disgust, recalling an apartment she and Scott Collins had inspected. “So you just know there are roaches inside.”
Ironically, UCSD houses a greater percentage of its students on campus than any other school in the University of California system. Bigger schools, like UCLA, may house a larger number. But at slightly over 30%, UCSD has the highest percentage.
That percentage rose recently when the university added 225 units, and would rise to about 38% if the university proceeds with tentative plans to add another 1,000 beds by the fall of 1988.
But building new dormitories affects on-campus housing rates, already at UCSD the highest in the UC system. Because there are no subsidies for housing construction, student rates must pay off the bonds issued for construction.
For that reason, administrators tend to be cautious about expansion, some said. They want to be certain no units will sit empty. That depends upon enrollment, and enrollment can be problematical to predict.
But Thomas Bond, provost of Revelle College and a vocal advocate of expanded on-campus housing, says every study he has seen suggests that students who live on campus do better academically than those who live off.
For example, a half-hour commute adds five wasted hours a week--and immeasurable annoyance finding scarce parking space on campus, he said. Students on campus are more likely to attend evening review sessions and study groups, which Bond said are shown to improve performance.
“That just gives you a lot more time for what I call involvement, and students involved with their education do better,” he said. “You have to be actively involved. It’s an awful lot easier for the person who lives on campus to do that.”
Currently, UCSD tries to guarantee on-campus housing to any freshman who wants it and hopes next year to give priority to sophomores as well. Juniors and seniors cast their fate to a lottery. The undergraduate waiting list is 500 names long.
Single graduate students and married couples wanting to live on campus can expect to wait even longer, said Larry Barrett, who is in charge of housing and food services. He said they might wait two years before getting a spot.
However, many students don’t want to live on campus. As many as a third of all undergraduates live at home, officials say. Others want privacy and don’t want dormitory restrictions on behavior such as drinking, playing stereos and cohabitation.
Several thousand of those pass through the Office of Off-Campus Housing each year, estimates Gloria Spencer, the director of the office. She and her staff try to impress upon students a difficult lesson: To find a home, they have to rein in their dreams.
Some might consider the wall of yellow file cards offering rooms in private homes, or the blue cards offering rooms in return for work. Some might stop looking for a place alone and simply answer a “roommate wanted” ad.
Last week, students were learning fast.
Eloy Rodriguez had driven for 16 hours from Denver, breaking down in the desert just outside Tuba City, Ariz. Arriving in America’s Finest City, he had checked in to a Travel Lodge, taken a quick nap, and headed straight for Off-Campus Housing.
After 40 minutes, he had abandoned hope of living alone.
“They look high. They look really high,” he said of the rents. His eyes looked slightly bloodshot, perhaps from the glare off the windshield or the bulletin board listings. “I’ve already revised my plans. I’m thinking of sharing rent.”
Catherine Eichhorn had lucked out: She had found a $200-a-month room in a house on La Jolla Shores Drive with four other students. It is within walking distance of school and the beach. Now she was back helping two Iranian students find rooms.
Look early in the morning, when landlords have just posted their listings; don’t wait until evening, when people “turn off,” she said. Have a positive attitude but don’t talk a lot. Listen to what the landlords say; behave like you’re in your parents’ home.
Another woman said she and her roommate were considering hanging around snazzy bars and picking up rich men: “Like some people can’t get girls to come home with them? They wouldn’t be able to get us to leave.”
An alternative, she said, would be a classified ad: “Need rich man.”
In the end, some students will end up in the Off-Campus Housing Office’s emergency hostel--two on-campus converted apartments filled with beds where students can stay in a pinch for up to five nights at $10 a night.
But the shelter, which according to Spencer was opened several years ago when it was learned that some students were forced to sleep under trees, is only open from Labor Day to the end of September. After that, they’re on their own.
