COLUMN: Good space is hard to find

From Jeremy Reiss', "Vegas, Baby," Fall '00 From Jeremy Reiss', "Vegas, Baby," Fall '00I've learned a valuable lesson over the past week. It resulted from the heavy rainstorm last Monday, which so flooded two bedrooms in my off-campus apartment that the landlord was forced to put my roommates up in a hotel. But most of all, what irks me is that my friends and I chose to move out of our previous house and into a basement apartment -- sacrificing both size and sunlight -- to contract with a supposedly more reputable landlord. I'm not going to ramble on about my own problems. And if I had it to do all over again, I would still live off campus. But the experience has made me accept the fact that because of the structure of a housing market where the customer base is college students, you cannot count on even the most "reputable" of landlords to ensure good service. In many ways, we at Penn have it much better than at other schools. At few others do students have the opportunity to rent their own houses just steps from campus. In its day, my previous house was an impressive three-story Victorian mansion. Forty or 50 years later, our independent landlord did little to keep it in good condition. Even continuous mice infestation couldn't move the small real estate firm to provide quick and effective help. And that is the problem. For even with large firms that own a bulk of the properties around campus, there are inevitable tradeoffs. Once the choice to live off campus is made, the decision becomes less of which house is best to live in and more of what you are willing to sacrifice. If you want to live closer to campus, you do so at your own risk. As long as demand continues to far exceed supply on such housing, landlords won't have a sense of urgency. They know that there will always be other students willing to rent their properties. In fact, with few exceptions, most area landlords are boasting 100 percent occupancy, even though in a truly competitive market they would never get away with some of their business practices. While some may provide better service than others, the reality is that as long as landlords do what is necessary to avoid legal troubles -- like paying for a tenant's hotel room -- they are able to charge rates that are above market value. Meanwhile, with few repercussions, they can often neglect basic services. Let's face it: Penn students aren't going to stop renting near campus any time soon. What can change is the student body's perception that there is not a comparable alternative on campus. A big part of the problem, certainly, is that most juniors and seniors continue to feel that the freedom, comfort and amenities of off-campus housing make it preferable to Penn dormitories. Add in the fact that the dorms typically cost more per month than even many costly off-campus houses, and there's little besides the added security to shift demand toward the college houses. A year and a half ago, as a Daily Pennsylvanian beat reporter, I covered the inaugural semester of the college house system. I know that the administrators involved in restructuring our dorms are committed to providing students with the most livable and practical spaces feasible. But as dormitories are razed and transformed over the next several years as part of a massive $300 million project, the University has its work cut out for itself if it hopes to change a majority of students' mindsets. The Office of College Houses and Academic Services must create dormitories that are not only more modern but that are better suited for upperclass living. If that means creating larger, more apartment-style units, then it must be done or the project itself isn't worth it. At the very minimum, the University must show that it is capable of providing more effective maintenance service than are the local landlords. Over the last few years -- and particularly during the period when services were outsourced to Trammell Crow -- that has clearly not been the case. Until it is, students will continue to choose their off-campus house based on the lesser of evils: poor location, poor service or high rents, or a combination thereof. And while some students will get lucky and survive a year or two with few problems, many others, like me, will continue to get screwed. And there isn't much they can do about it.