UCSD Students face Housing Crisis as Enrollment Rises

Due to a massive influx of students seeking off-campus housing, thousands of UC San Diego students are struggling to secure housing for the 2021-22 school year, a predicament that students have dubbed a “housing crisis.”

One second year transfer student has been left homeless, and plans on living out of their car until they can secure housing.

UC San Diego’s Housing Dining Hospitality (HDH) announced their decision to eliminate triple occupancy dorm rooms and replace their two-year housing guarantee with a priority system in April 2021. As a result of the new housing policy, 1,168 second year students were placed on a housing waitlist and had to look for living accommodations off campus. According to ABC 10News as of Sep. 15 there were over 700 students on the housing waitlist.

As a result of this change, Emre Durmus, a second year Molecular and Cellular Biology major who initially planned on spending $10,000 on housing for the 2021-22 school year, had to adjust his budget to $13,000.

“To cover the difference, I have been working two jobs over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year. I will additionally have to rely on my parents’ financial support as even having a handful of scholarships and a 55-hour workweek has only covered a part of the cost,” Durmus said.

Durmus, who is an international student from Korea, has also faced difficulties finding housing due to the 16-hour time difference between Seoul and San Diego.

Anna Durmus, Durmus’ mother, told The Triton, “If we knew that UCSD [could] not uphold their promise of offering the two-year housing guarantee for the students, we would [have] consider[ed] sending him to a different college.”

She also expressed concerns about the discrepancy between the cost of living off campus and the cost of living on campus.

Durmus, who has not spent an extended period of time in California, also faced transportation challenges in the fall, as he does not have a U.S. driver’s license.

In an email from the Director of Housing Services Jana Severson to Christi Papworth, whose  just son entered his second year at UCSD, Severson asserted that the Off Campus Housing department intended to hold a housing fair in May 2021.

“In May, they said they were gonna have a housing fair, and that’s too early, number one, to have a housing fair because they didn’t find out until July if you have housing,” Papworth said. “They had their housing website that show[ed] housing options of where you can even look but it’s not like a housing fair in my opinion.”

The thousands of additional students seeking places to live off-campus have substantially increased demand for off-campus apartments and houses and made it more difficult to find housing.

Gary Kent, who has worked in La Jolla real estate for 37 years and has experience helping the parents of UCSD students find housing, told The Triton in July that he anticipates the increased demand for housing will increase rental prices, especially around campus.

One 1 bedroom 1 bathroom 554 square foot apartment roughly two miles from campus has been listed at $2,950/month, though Zillow estimates its rent to be $2,199 per month.

Kent also noted, “Vacation rentals are eating up a lot of the supply and so that decreases what’s available for students and thus increases rents.”

Andrew Deip, a fourth year Math Computer Science major, faced a difficult situation as he attempted to secure a four month lease. “It was a nightmare trying to find housing,” Deip said.

“A lot more people are taking up all the spots and because they have a year-long lease they are given priority to have the spots. And as a person who just wants a four month lease, it’s almost impossible to find at least one that will take you,” Deip said.

In response to the rise in the number of students looking for off-campus housing, Seventh College student council members Allyson M. Bradley, Director of Events, and Ian Fosth, Associated Student Senator, drafted a Housing Crisis Proposal. The proposal called on the University to invest in emergency housing by implementing a “Friends In Need” policy, which would allow residents of an on-campus suite to host individuals until they are able to secure housing, and converting open space on campus, such as the Main Gym and parts of Price Center, into emergency housing. The proposal was released on July 30th and the university has yet to respond.

Bradley told The Triton: “While l do think we should take Covid seriously, I disagree with making it a priority over the housing crisis. It is my belief that the housing crisis will take priority whether the school allows it to or not, because who will care about a pandemic when they have nowhere to live?”

Frost spoke at a rally held on campus Friday Oct. 1, where students demanded UCSD halt rent increases, terminate academic holds for students who fail to pay rent, and take financial responsibility for the lack of affordable housing.

The rally called on UCSD to implement policies that would provide undergraduate and graduate students with affordable housing. Specifically, protestors oppose rent increases in graduate student housing and UCSD continuing to expand while it cannot adequately house and feed its student population.

Bradley, as well members of the San Diego Faculty Association and members of University Students Against Sweatshops, hosted an unofficial town hall on Sept. 21, where students and faculty voiced frustration with the University’s failure to provide adequate housing.

On Sept. 28, a group of students attended the County of San Diego Independent Redistricting Commission and advocated that UCSD be redistricted from District 1 (La Jolla, University City, Torrey Pines) to a new district with Clairemont Mesa, Mira Mesa, and Sorrento Valley. AVP of Local Affairs Aidan Lin wrote that “La Jolla dominates the political sphere of District 1, cutting out student needs, i.e. affordable housing, to prioritize their own.”

A petition circulated via Change.org called on UCSD to, ”1.) Require UC San Diego to compensate for its selfishness by offering tuition and housing refunds to students who do not want to attend under these circumstances! 2.) Require UC San Diego to offer 50% or more tuition reductions to students forced back online due to housing unavailability! 3.) Require UC San Diego to provide ALL students with a 15% tuition reduction in compensation for its dishonest and irresponsible choice!”

The petition has over 430 signatures as of Oct. 6.

HDH’s new priority housing policy, coupled with its impact on the off-campus housing market, falls short of UCSD’s goal to provide students with four years of housing that Chancellor Pradeep Khosla set when he said, “[W]e want to become a residential campus with a four-year housing guarantee for every undergrad at below-market prices.”

Despite facing criticism for failing to house their students since 2016, enrollment at UCSD continues to rise. In the 2020-21 application cycle, UCSD admitted a record-breaking 40,616 first year students and 12,330 transfer students.

UCSD has recommended students who did not receive housing contracts to visit their Off-Campus Housing website and held an Off-Campus Housing Webinar on Aug. 6. In late August, UCSD presented students with the option to live in hotels at a discounted rate.

“UC San Diego contacted local hotels to explore special rates for our students who are in need of transitional, immediate housing. As a result, four Marriott hotels indicated that they are offering UC San Diego students extended stay housing options at a discount on stays of longer than 90 days during the fall quarter. Options include a La Jolla studio suite for $119/night or $59.50/night per person, which at double-occupancy would be approximately $1,785/month per student including breakfast and wifi,” Associate Director of University Communications Leslie Sepuka said in a statement to The Triton.

While some students can afford long-term stays at these hotels, spending $1,785 per month on housing can be too expensive for others, especially for a double. The cost of on campus housing ranges from $12,394 to $17,195 per school year (from Sept. 10 to June 10, roughly 10 months) and includes the cost of an on-campus dining plan. At the current hotel rates cost $17,850 per school year, more expensive than the most costly on campus option. It remains unclear if hotel stays will extend into the next academic year.

The majority of students searching for housing on the UCSD Student Off-Campus Housing Facebook group have budgets that range from $600 to $1,200 per month.

Sepuka also encouraged students to schedule a consultation with the Off-Campus Housing Office. “We encourage students to look for housing outside of La Jolla, which has very little housing availability,” Sepuka said.

Communities further from campus, such as Miramar and Kearny Mesa, have fewer bus routes than those close to campus, such as the Gilman and UTC Transit centers. For students who drive to campus, parking availability is limited, and an S pass costs $346.50 for a quarter.

The housing crisis at UCSD and across the UC system has been connected to rising enrollment.

According to UC Berkeley professors John Aubrey Douglass and Zachary Bleemer’s 2018 report on UC funding, while the UCs were once mostly supported by the government, funding has significantly declined since the 1990s. To make up for lost state support and maintain their mission of accessible higher education for California residents, the UC system increased enrollment to survive.

“Without a significant increase in state investment, UC may be approaching a tipping point at which the University community will need to decide whether it has the resources to continue to grow in enrollment,academic programs, and services, or not to grow and focus on maintaining quality and productivity,” Douglass and Bleeme said.

Manu Agni, ASUCSD President, told The Triton that UCSD has been especially affected by the statewide mandate to grow due to administrators’ perception of having “a lot more space” than other UCs.

Bradley echoed this sentiment in a statement to The Triton, saying, “Students need to get off the UCSD hate train at some point and take this to the state, which actively chose not to help students (especially those in the UC system) when given the chance.”

UCSD currently has no plans to cut enrollment.

Sarah Naughten is the Assistant News Editor for The Triton.