The AUP Housing Crisis: Second Year of Failure

Photo Credit: John Tower

The AUP Housing department continues to struggle with accommodating students for a second year in a row. As AUP officially crosses one month of classes next week, many graduate students are still without housing, and some are feeling they didn’t have a choice but to look externally for housing. One of the students who found their housing through AUP, Annika Thompson, commented “I did end up finding an apartment through AUP, but I felt like it was just luck and not because AUP had a successful system in place.”

Some students have given up working with AUP, growing frustrated that the promises and expectations they had were not being met. “They could have been more helpful” said graduate student Danayt Teku, who felt let down and unprepared for the housing search. Currently Danayt is staying in a hotel while independently searching for a house, after using AUP housing for a week she decided it would be easier to search by herself.

Ira Mcintosh, a graduate student, was left unhoused and unaccommodated from AUP and had to stay at their Air bnb. “I got lucky and booked an Air bnb with a host who had extra space and was more than willing to rent out her extra room in the interim and who, eventually, found me an apartment through a friend.” Ira felt like he wasn’t given a choice but to search outside of AUP housing data base, saying “All that was available was rooms with host families and, as a 30-soemthing, I would rather live alone and not have to worry about coming home late, leaving early, having people over, etc.”

But not every student has had a negative experience with AUP, Rose Gruber commented that “Aside from the lack of transparency about the process and timeline, I feel really supported by AUP and feel like they care.” At first Rose had issues with contacting landlord but were able to connect with their current landlord despite both traveling, poor WIFI, and issues with banks. Through these obstacles they still felt supported by AUP.

Last year a similar issued plagued first year students who felt that AUP didn’t vet the landlords and properties, lacked communication with students, and left students without a home or necessities. Many of these problems stemmed from being understaffed and the office manager leaving with a new manager coming in her wake soon. According to Ava Castaneda, the journalist ‘AUP Housing Crisis for First Years’ article, “Some said the disappointments and struggles in the Housing Office could all be a result of the office being understaffed. Others believed it could be due to the pandemic and this return of normalcy causing a huge influx of students in which this small university was not truly prepared.”