Summer housing hassles

Summer can be a nomadic time for most Penn students. There are those who spend June and July backpacking through Europe and others who divide their break between an internship in New York and one in D.C. At the very least, the majority make the pilgrimage back to their hometown. These students expect and prepare themselves for the hassles of moving around.

Unfortunately, every year the Penn housing system needlessly turns hundreds of unwilling students into nomads. Its policy quirks force summer residents, who wanted to remain in one spot, to become wanderers.

Admittedly, the housing problems that occur during these months are minor in comparison to what takes place during the school year. (Pipes don't make it a habit of bursting in July.) However, unlike decades old electrical wiring, the summer housing issues should be relatively easy and inexpensive to resolve. In fact, if Housing and Conferences Services plays its cards right it could even make money off of these changes.

Currently, students who want to live on-campus during the summer have three choices, all of which are pretty undesirable. First, they can move out of their dorm and be homeless for the odd week between the end of spring semester occupancy and the first Summer Session move-in. Of course, living on the street or in a borrowed apartment with sketchy borrowed roommates, is certainly not recommended.

Another option is to volunteer to work during move-out for 20 hours and receive a room extension as payment. For students trying to start their summer job or find one or just regain their sanity after finals, long move-out shifts carrying boxes are less than ideal.

Finally, a student can pay $25 a night for seven nights or $175 for the room extension. This is 50 dollars more in weekly rent than what a student sharing a bedroom during a summer session pays. Even a summer student with a single bedroom pays less than $175 a week. While the room extension may be the easiest option, the pricing reeks of a rip-off.

All this begs the question, why is it even necessary to move out for that one week in May in the first place? According to the Living@UPenn mass email I received, the move-out rush is because "a great deal" of vacant room cleaning goes on during Senior week. This seemed like a legitimate reason until I heard a House Dean characterize the summer room cleaning as a free yard sale where the janitors largely spend their time taking all the lamps, chairs, and TVs students leave behind. (This process explains why my friend moved into a dorm room literally covered in mold but devoid of any extra appliances last fall.) So the hurry for summer cleaning isn't really warranted.

Next year, if Housing and Conferences Services still finds that intervening week to be absolutely essential, they should at least lower the price of a room extension. In all likelihood more students would participate and ultimately no revenue would be lost. Additionally, they could make a few extra bucks by offering special weekly housing rates throughout the end of May. The spring semester move-out leaves many students stranded for about three weeks, since summer off-campus apartment leases don't start until the first of June. At the moment, the existing housing policy is little help to these students since it requires that they rent a dorm room for a minimum of four weeks.

My last suggestion is as obvious as it is sadly necessary. When Housing assigns a student to a room for Summer Session I, they should try to keep that student in the room for Summer Session II. Everyone I know who lived on campus last summer had to inexplicably change rooms at least two or three times. And from what I've heard, playing musical rooms in the high rises is not a whole lot of fun.

As their advertising campaign suggests, the people of Housing and Conferences Services want more students to make Penn their "summer destination." But to achieve this goal, it would be a good idea for them to stop penalizing students for choosing to stay in University City. Instead Housing and Conferences Services should work to make moving in to the dorms and staying there as simple as possible. After all, if we wanted to wander, we wouldn't be here.

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