Certain issues call for students to seek temporary accommodation
Thursday, September 27, 2012
There are times when access to alternative housing is the difference between homelessness and hopefulness. In these situations, staying in a hotel is an unsavory thought, as there's no real timetable for permanent placement in a real housing situation. For those affected by such circumstances, a long term arrangement in temporary accommodations is the key to surviving the displacement.
Sometimes a situation can be caused by a lack of adequate housing, or other times a health or structural crisis can force many people out of their homes at once. This is particularly a problem for college students, as they may be far from home with no ability to move back due to academic obligations. Furthermore, lack of personal income may hinder their ability to find private accommodations, meaning responsible colleges must find more reasonable places for them to stay while resolutions are being reached. For many of these entities, temporary lodging is the best answer.
Short lets or long staysThe nice thing about furnished apartments, especially for universities, is that these facilities provide all the necessities to get students settled quickly. It may be that they were unable to bring anything with them but a few pairs of clothes and some personal items, and the immediate comfort of an assembled living situation can be a great comfort. For others, there may have been no housing to begin with, and so the temporary housing becomes the only dorm they will ever know until more reasonable on-campus solutions are reached.
Keystone College in Pennsylvania is currently facing a situation where too many students are enrolled to fit into available housing. The school's facilities were built to house 515 people, and currently just over 500 are using these structures, so any additional incoming students would need to be provided with alternative housing solutions. The college is expecting higher numbers in the coming year and beyond, meaning that if no other dormitories are built this year, there could be a run on furnished apartments in the area in the near future.
"Right now, we are getting close to being maxed out in terms of housing," said Sarah Keating, enrollment vice president of Keystone, in an interview with The Times-Tribune. "We have enough space this year, but we are looking at a year or two from now when we have a couple more big freshmen classes."
Livability crisis
In other scenarios, there are events that turn dorms into uninhabitable structures, sometimes for a day or so, and in others weeks or more. Asbestos problems, gas leaks, water shut-offs and other emergencies can force hundreds of students out of their homes at a moment's notice, and university staff must scramble to find them different lodgings immediately.
Residents of Reed Hall at the University of Georgia were recently required to move out of their rooms when extreme and potentially dangerous mold infestations were found in several different parts of the building, Red and Black reported. The school was able to find temporary housing in other buildings on campus, but if the issue becomes more widespread, it is possible that even more students will need alternative living quarters. If that should occur, the university will have to scramble for other temporary lodgings for every person displaced by the mandatory evacuation of residence halls.