Blog Assignment #13 story

Newsvine account address: cjagger.newsvine.com

Story I wrote:

"Housing a Major Concern For Cal Poly Students"

All students look forward to having a great time at Cal Poly, yet they often are unaware of the enormous hindrance it is to try to find legitimate housing in San Luis Obispo. With regard to housing, it is almost as if San Luis Obispo is in denial about its student population. The problem begins with incoming freshmen expecting to get a spot in the highly impacted dorms. It is downright unacceptable for Cal Poly to accept so many students, knowing full well that there is not nearly enough room in the on campus dormitories to house all them. If incoming freshmen send in their check to Cal Poly slightly too late, they are turned away from the dorm rooms and forced to find off campus housing in a short period of time. Finding off campus housing late in the season is a very large problem. Most apartment complexes are very close to capacity, and it is extremely inconvenient for students to be put on the spot and have to make a search for off campus housing when they originally assumed they would be living in the dorms. Once a suitable apartment is found, leases can be a huge concern. Apartment complexes blatantly know when the school year starts and ends, yet still force their residents to sign year long leases. Students are then stuck with an apartment that they have no use for over summer, when they are most likely back home.
Housing rentals can also be a royal pain. It seems like landlords do not realize that Cal Poly starts in September, because they would make a lot more money if they listed properties starting in August or September in March or April, when students need to find a place before being tied down by a lease. It shouldn’t be a problem to do this if the current residents are living there until September anyways. No student wants to be looking around for housing over the summer before fall term, but it seems like students have to resort to doing this in order to find a house that will start rent at the beginning of fall quarter.
There is also not enough open housing close to Cal Poly. Every year an enormous amount of Cal Poly students need to live in far away locations and commute to Cal Poly, because they only open housing they can find are in places like Grover Beach. Students need commute very far just to go to class.
The Poly Canyon housing project is a very good long term for Cal Poly’s housing dilemma, but the students attending college right now don’t get to reap any benefits besides seeing a bunch of construction going on year round. Overall, if Cal Poly and off campus residents would work together to help cater to the needs of students, everybody would be better off and these residences would be just as rich, if not better off.