“The Price Is NOT Right”: Navigating Student Housing at UC Berkeley
By: Delany Moreno
In the midst of a pandemic, opening my acceptance letter from the #1 public university in the country felt like a dream come true. It was testament that all of my hard work and commitment to academic achievements paid off. I was a bit hesitant of the academic rigor that would come with being a UC Berkeley student, but I was also open to the challenge. Little did I know that one of the greatest challenges I had to face over these next four years was looking for housing. Normally, students were guaranteed housing in the dorms as freshmen. However, in my circumstances, that would not be necessary as the 2020-21 academic year was held virtually. Due to the pandemic, I had not become familiar with the city of Berkeley or set foot on the campus until my sophomore year. The Spring before the 2021-22 academic year I had applied for student housing as soon as applications opened, eagerly hoping to secure the best room possible. I had not received any updates from campus housing until the summer when they sent an email stating that as a sophomore, it was no longer necessary for them to provide campus housing and I would not be receiving any housing offers due to the large number of new students that year. This was very upsetting to me as I had never been to Berkeley and was not familiar at all with any of the housing resources to look for rentals in the area. In fact, the most familiarity I had with the UC Berkeley campus was the virtual Minecraft replica tour of the campus held during my Zoom orientation in 2020.
Navigating the housing scene in Berkeley was difficult, but I had managed to rent a room at a place called “The Berk” where I paid $1,600 a month for a two-person room that was the size of a walk-in closet. I had no point of reference at the time of what a “good” place for rent looked like so I was pretty content for that academic year. The following year, I noticed a drastic decrease in my scholarship money and found an affordable room in a communal house that was half the price of my current room. In-person tours were not available so based on the short youtube video tour I signed the contract for the 2022-23 academic year. It was not until move-in day that I realized the poor condition this building was in. Unfortunately, I only lived there for a month due to a bedbug infestation that management turned a blind eye to. While I was temporarily unsure of where I would be sleeping for the night, I quickly found a room to rent in a shared house of college students and moved in the same day I signed the lease. While I was now comfortable living at my new place, I still was contractually obligated to pay rent for the old bedbug infested room for the rest of my lease term because I could not find someone willing to replace my spot. After this experience, I can definitely argue that the most difficult challenge I had to encounter while attending a competitive top university was finding an affordable place to live.
Recently, I discovered there was a new proposed student housing development being built over People’s Park. While this was framed as something positive I learned that not only were unhoused people residing in People’s Park being displaced, but the proposed cost of living in this new development was absurdly expensive for a student like myself. Sharing my college housing experience with other students is both comforting and disheartening as many other students hear my story and share they have also experienced similar circumstances. It is about time the top public university in the country starts providing safe and accessible housing as many of its students work too hard to have to worry about where they will be sleeping tonight.