Last spring, some Simmons students who applied for on-campus housing for the fall semester were put on the waitlist. With the fear that there wouldn’t be room for them, some decided to find off-campus housing.

While it remains unclear how many were affected, the shortage impacted students throughout the undergraduate community.

Michelle Bozzi is a third-year student in the Sociology 3+1 program who applied for on-campus housing for the Fall 2022 semester. “I don’t really think that many students I know were approaching the process of signing up for housing with any kind of worry,” explaining that she had been given the impression from past students that lack of housing is not something Simmons students are regularly concerned about.

After Bozzi was put on the housing waitlist, she “was in a place of real panic when I was told that I was on this waitlist that seemed like it was going to stretch forever.” She explains she made the decision to seek off-campus housing based on what she was hearing from other students. “Even though I could hypothetically stay on the waitlist, it would put me in a more precarious spot later on.” 

While she says she is happy in her current living situation, Bozzi expresses that she misses the convenience of living on campus. “It was really nice living on a campus where I could just walk five minutes down the street for groceries,” she explains, “and now I rely a lot more on public transportation.”

Last spring junior Alli Dudas also found herself on the housing waitlist for the fall. After submitting her housing application, the Public Relations and Marketing Communications major says she started hearing rumors that students were going to be waitlisted and feared for her chances of receiving a single room as an accommodation. “People were just, like, non-stop talking about how there’s not enough housing,” says Dudas. Knowing that she would not be guaranteed housing even with a single accommodation, Dudas started searching for apartments. 

Dudas says she is grateful to have been able to find off-campus housing but knows that Boston housing can prove inaccessible for many. While she was able to find and fund an apartment off campus, she thought about what situation she would be in if she had not been able to.“What if someone who didn’t have my means went through the exact same situation, like what do they do?” she poses, “you can’t get your degree because you can’t be a student.”

Like Dudas and Bozzi, current junior Katjana Gora applied for on-campus housing and was placed on the waitlist. The Computer Science major decided to start looking for off-campus housing with friends but wasn’t seriously concerned about not being placed on campus. 

Gora says that she too started to worry the waitlist would be long, especially since she was not sure how many students were on it. “We didn’t want to get more involved in a situation that seemed like it was just not going anywhere,” she explains about her decision to look at off-campus housing with her friends.  

Dr. Renique Kersh, Vice President of Student Affairs, provided a statement to the Voice regarding the housing situation. She states that the housing staff is “committed to ensuring that the communication about the process is more clear so all students understand the requirements, the timeline and the process,” for the upcoming application process in the spring of 2023. She adds that there will be information sessions announced “soon” for students interested in applying for on-campus housing in the spring. 

Kersh also advises students “complete the housing application as soon as possible once it opens,” in the spring. 

The Voice reached out to the Office of Residence Life for an interview, but the office would not schedule a time to meet in person and did not provide a statement on the situation.