The best things in life come in threes, right? For the sake of Stony Brook’s incoming class of 2018, I certainly hope so. Almost all have been told that they will be placed in triples for their first semester. This is not the first problem to come up from Stony Brook’s lack of housing, and has been a common complaint among students.
As a response, the university announced the building of two new residence halls, adding close to 800 beds for students on campus. Even if it will not fix the problem entirely, adding the new dorms will no doubt help the housing situation.
According to Newsday, Stony Brook currently has on-campus housing for less than half of its students. It is noticeable too, especially this year, when there are an increasing number of freshman being admitted and most of them being tripled or told they are on wait for housing. This growth, though tight for space, is great in showing how Stony Brook is distancing itself from being a school know for commuters.
With the new addition of the dorms, Stony Brook will have the largest on-campus housing in the SUNY system with a bed count of 10,300. The new dorms will not only ease the demand for housing, but will also appeal to students who are looking as a close college community on campus.
However, housing does not just exist on campus. Many upperclassmen prefer to move off-campus to get their own place, free from RA’s and campus housing prices. The housing the students find, however, is not always safe. According to the Times Beacon Record, the Stony Brook Concerned Homeowners have been trying to raise awareness of illegal off-campus housing, where landlords provide student housing that violates town code. Anthony DeRosa, one of the association’s founders, said the university should try adding more apartment style/town houses on campus, which “might encourage some students to still seek on campus housing.”
This will be another obstacle for the school to tackle. SBU spokesperson Lauren Sheprow released a statement saying the university has spoken with local developers on building apartment style housing in areas that do not violate the code. Most of these promises are fleeting and the only tangible responses we have seen to any housing issues are the new residence halls, which should not go unnoticed and is a step in the right direction of better housing for the school.
The new addition of housing will greatly ease tension for future incoming students. As for the class of 2018, tripling is not terrible. Yes, space is tight and privacy is limited. But if you end up with a roommate who does not believe in showering, cleaning or getting out of bed, at least you are not alone. The struggle of housing, in dorm rooms or off-campus, is really just another right of passage in college. You must claw you’re way through the craziness just as every other student has. And, at least for once it, seems like Stony Brook is trying to help its students and diminish some of the craziness. Let’s just hope that it works.
