DCL fails to fulfill housing accommodations

■ Students with disabilities wrote a petition to advocate for their previously promised housing accommodations.

By SOPHIA DE LISI JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

On March 30, shortly after assigning students with their selection numbers, the Department of Community Living released housing options for students who applied for housing accommodations for the upcoming academic year. However, numerous students have reported that their housing offers have not been suitable in terms of the DCL-approved accommodations. Additionally, many juniors and seniors were not offered housing accommodations because their randomly-assigned housing numbers were too high. In response, two students from the Disabled Students’ Network created a letter template for students to sign and send to DCL to advocate for impacted students. Due to the initiative’s strong support, the plan evolved into a petition that has been signed by 182 students, 19 alumni, and 26 relatives, as of press time.

The petition specifically cites

DCL’s lack of transparency with students in need of accommodations.

According to the petition, DCL has prevented “disabled students from making the proper arrangements to seek off-campus housing alternatives” and prevented them from “forming and/or joining housing groups in the general selection process” because they did not expect to have to make plans in the instance that DCL would refuse previously promised accommodations. Furthermore, the petition stresses that this refusal threatens students’ right to equal access to education, creates possible academic and medical issues, and has the potential to cause homelessness.

DCL’s accommodations page specifies the general process for getting accommodations approved. However, they direct students to the Student Accessibility Support housing accommodations page for further details regarding the request process.

Bryn Zilch ’24, who is helping run a student-led investigation of DCL through a Discord server to discern why some students’ accommodations were rejected, elaborated on the issue in an April 3 interview with the Justice.

“DSN and all of the other people

‘Global

 Interviewees discuss their finds at Moody St.’s “Global Thrift.”

By AUTUMN BELLAN

FEATURES 6

Tuesday, April 4, 2023