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VOLUME 137, ISSUE 31 | MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2019
O L I V I A KOT L A R E K / AGGI E
CONQUERING THE SEARCH FOR HOUSING Advice for students seeking to live off-campus
FIVE COMMUNITY RETENTION AND RESOURCE CENTERS OFFER RESOURCES, PROGRAMMING Each center has initiatives to support different marginalized communities
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BY ST EL L A T RA N city@theaggie.org Looking for housing may be a daunting task for incoming transfer students as well as new second-year students who are leaving their Segundo, Tercero or Cuarto spaces. While hunting for a new place to live is a sign of becoming a full-fledged adult, the excitement may wane with all the decisions students must make in order to secure housing. Rebecca C. Spin, a second-year design major at UC Davis, stressed the importance of securing housing at an early date before dense competition ensues, pressuring new students to find a place to live. “Definitely do it earlier rather than later — don’t leave it until the last minute,” Spin said. “I know some people have been absolutely left in the cold with that. Choose options that are financially good for you. Realize whether or not you’re going to be in control of the internet, water and power because we did not consider any of those [and] now, we are responsible for those things.” Shari Houston, the director of site management and resident relations at Tandem Properties, also indicated that starting early is crucial. “It can be challenging for first-time renters to find the right balance between rushing to sign too soon and waiting too long to start their housing search,” Houston said in an email interview. “It’s important to do your research and
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connect with your top-choice communities early.” Lorna Hyatt, the community manager for University Court, mentioned that most students start planning their housing in December, a year before their intended move-in date. “Most popular properties in Davis would start pre-leasing in December the year before,” Hyatt said. “University Court has [had] no vacancy for a number [of ] weeks now. I know that’s the case for a lot of the popular properties, and space can be found at some of the older properties that are further from campus. If you want to live within reasonable biking or walking distance in well-maintained properties that have good management, maintenance and reputation, those fill up quickly.” Spin also indicated, however, that there are more options besides apartments for students to live in. For instance, she chose to live in a house. “In our case, it was because we were living with five people, so [a house] was the most financially reasonable option for the amount of space we needed,” Spin said. “As it stands, it was an affordable and spacious option — really a nice option overall.” Spin further noted that students are not alone in their journeys to find housing. “Research, ask parents, ask other college students who have done this already,” Spin said. Also, seek out people who are in control of your
apartment or complex. In our case, we actually have a front office that deals with all of our main issues. Just talk to them because they will care for most of the problems — you just have to be able to know who can help you.” Hyatt emphasized the importance of researching outside of internet sources to get a better feel for housing complexes other than what is claimed online. “I’ve encountered students who come to Davis and they have not seen it before,” Hyatt said. “They are disappointed by what they are moving into if it doesn’t look like what it looks like online. If you are shopping online, you should try to connect with groups on campus about properties and what they truly are like versus what they look like online.” Students can access housing resources on the Tandem Properties website, which offers information about the individual lease program option for students who are facing last-minute decisions with housing. “For last minute housing, it might help to consider communities that offer an individual lease program option,” Houston said. “With these programs, you can still obtain the benefit of sharing the cost of living expenses with a larger household, but being on a separate lease ensures each leaseholder is responsible only for their own portion of rent — *** This article is continued online.
BY K E NTO N G O LDS BY campus@theaggie.org UC Davis is an undeniably diverse campus, as reports like the UC Davis Student Profile show. For this reason, the university offers numerous ways to uplift the varied identities of those within the student body. The most visible form that these efforts take is the collection of Community Retention and Resource Centers on campus. These five centers focus on different aspects of the individual, including race, ethnicity, personal interests, academics, sexuality and gender. The five centers that make up this network are the Center for Student Involvement (CSI); the Cross Cultural Center (CCC); the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Asexual, and Intersex (LGBTQIA) Resource Center; the Women’s Resources and Research Center (WRRC) and the Student Resource and Retention Center (SRRC). The CCC, the LGBTQIA Resource Center and the SRRC, are in the Student Community Center. The WRRC is in North Hall while the CSI is on the fourth floor of the Memorial Union. The CSI is the on-campus hub for everything having to do with registered student organizations (RSOs). There are over 700 RSOs at UC Davis, falling into various categories such as advocacy, political, religious, community service, health and more. Students
can browse the list of student organizations on the AggieLife website, run by CSI. In addition to just browsing the long list, though, there is also an “Involvement Calculator” offered by CSI to help students find a club that fits their interests. Jamie Allen, the leadership development and outreach specialist for CSI, explained the process of finding campus clubs in an email. “On the Involvement Calculator you tell us a little bit about yourself (identities, career goals, major, hobbies, etc.) and we send you back a custom list of RSO[’s] to consider joining,” said Jaime Allen. “It is one way CSI can help you find the right RSO to join from the hundreds on campus. After you get your list, you can come in and meet with one of our Involvement Mentors to talk more about the RSOs or get help reaching out to help to learn how to join.” The CCC traces its roots back to a hunger strike that took place in 1990 on the steps of Mrak Hall, where students presented three demands. These students wanted an investigation into alleged racism in the Spanish department, the establishment of an on-campus ethnic and cultural center as well as increased fulltime faculty in the ethnic studies departments. After the six day strike, the activists and the university reached an agreement and the CCC opened in 1992. The CCC has six values that guide its work in the
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community: advocacy; cultural competency; academic excellence, research and education; identity exploration and leadership development. This is done through the many programs that the CCC puts on each year, such as culture days like Black Family Day, La Gran Tardeada, the Powwow and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Night Market. The CCC also does other programming around things like race and ethnicity and disability activism, while also hosting retreats for campus communities. The LGBTQIA Resource Center’s mission is to “provide an open, safe, inclusive space and community that is committed to challenging sexism, cissexism/trans oppression/ transmisogyny, heterosexism, monosexism, and allosexism.” The mission recognizes that such “work requires a continued process of understanding and dismantling all forms of oppression.” Beyond this, the center provides numerous physical resources to students: a library, condoms and other sexual health supplies, a gender-affirmation clothing closet, a small food pantry and menstrual products. The center also provides something essential to self-expression: a space. “We provide space for folks to consistently study, have student organization meetings for events — I think that’s a huge piece on a day-to-day basis,”
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