Housing Limited

Housing Limited

Today on my way back from eating a delicious buffet style meal, I stopped to check the little box that is my source for outside information; it opens into an area that stores a rainbow of flyers from every organization imaginable. Connected to that room are hundreds of these doorways, that all collect the same stack of recyclable announcements, but I have the combination to unlock the one that corresponds with the big box, called my dorm room. In my mailbox, there was a flyer that was personally addressed to me: Residents of Pennypacker Hall. When the metal clasp that kept the contents a secret, was removed the first thing I saw was "NEED A PLACE TO LIVE NEXT YEAR?" It was an advertisement for some of the apartment complexes downtown. Disappointed that it was not an invitation to a club meeting with free food, I tossed the paper aside. Later I was thinking, "Maybe this is something important that I should be thinking about…"

Do you know where you are going to live next year? This is a question that many of us college students are going to have to ask ourselves in the next couple of months. It seems that since our parents, or even ourselves, are paying to send us to college, once we get here accommodations should be available to us.

Penn State’s dorm system does not guarantee housing after freshman year. The dorm rooms that are available are handed out by lottery. To avoid the risk of being homeless, one can get an apartment downtown, but even these are limited. The increased number of people being accepted to Penn State is making the problem worse. This editorial from The Daily Collegian focuses on that.

The author starts off the article by thanking the Borough Council for discussing the issue of overcrowded housing of college students downtown. This directly shows no hard feelings towards the Borough Council, who is responsible for the zoning of the land that allowed for infill housing. Infill housing is allowing more than one building to be built on a single lot. The author wants to inform his audience, without turning them against Borough Council.

An article that was published the same day in The Daily Collegian, explains the problems with infill housing. Five years ago, the Borough Council voted to allow infill housing to create an urban village filled with shops, cafes, and art galleries that maintained the suburban look and kept historic buildings in place.