TO THE EDITOR:
The Nov. 22 editorial, “Students: take action against the housing ordinance,” misses the mark by a mile by asking students to unite against their own interests and neighborhood interests.
Students should be outraged, but not by the town occupancy limits. They should be outraged by the ways that landlords take advantage of them for additional profit and in direct violation of a law. Occupancy limits are used to protect the stability of neighborhoods from predatory investors and promote neighborhood safety in college towns throughout the country.
The opinion piece last week was short-sighted and based in limited logic that showed no understanding of how things are actually taking place. Homes with more than four bedrooms in Northside are just as expensive per bedroom as houses with three to four bedrooms. Landlords get the most per bedroom that the market allows (six bedrooms for $4200 in Northside).
Homes with six or more bedrooms are also in violation of fire code (a safety hazard). They have quality of life effects on all neighbors around: an overwhelming majority of homes reported for nuisance violations are from houses with more than four occupants. More students means more cars, turning yards into parking lots. These houses are often owned by investors who could not care less about respecting student rights, and often pass on their fines to tenants directly and refuse to repair essential problems.
And finally, they become the site of displacement for long-term residents who cannot afford rising costs of the bubble created by bedroom communities. At the Jackson Center, we work to advance the vitality and diversity of neighborhoods like Northside — work that benefits and protects permanent residents and student residents alike.
We hope you will visit us and begin to understand the history of neighborhoods that have built the University and continue to sustain it. We’d love to help you gain the resources to stand up to the gross violations by landlords in these downtown communities and promote the landlords who respect laws and communities alike.
Hudson Vaughan ’08
Marian Cheek
Jackson Center
