UCI facing housing shortage

Deirdre Newman

UCI CAMPUS -- When freshman Varun Jain filled out his housing

application, he requested a single.

What he got instead was a triple -- one in a study area that was

converted into a bedroom to make room for UC Irvine’s burgeoning student

population.

“I was freaking out and upset,” Jain said. “It’s a great way to start

my UCI experience.”

Jain is a victim of UCI’s housing policy, which is playing catch-up to

the university’s enrollment increase. In the past five years, the number

of students has increased 20% and the housing department is working

feverishly to construct new buildings to accommodate them.

Adding to the pressure is an increase in the number of freshmen who

want to live on campus, said James Craig, director of housing.

At UCI, freshmen housing is guaranteed. To compensate, this fall the

university assigned three students to a room in about 150 cases and

created about 35 more makeshift triple arrangements in study areas.

In total, about 255 students are affected by the space crunch. This

year’s freshman class includes 4,896 students, and the entire student

population is 20,790.

While the study areas are spacious enough to accommodate a single bed,

a bunk bed and three desks, they are lacking in other amenities, such as

mirrors and closet space. The university has provided cardboard wardrobe

boxes and a few plastic drawers for each student, but when Jain requested

an additional wardrobe, he said he never received it.

Jain, who is from Houston, requested on-campus housing because he

doesn’t have family in the area.

Because the room was designed as a study area, Jain and his roommates

must contend with light from the hallway shining through one of the

windows at night, he said.

The arrangement also makes studying at night difficult, Jain said,

because everyone has different sleeping patterns.

To combat the shortage, the university is engaged in an “aggressive”

building strategy, Craig said. New dorms are under construction next to

the current ones, with the expectation of transferring students into them

as early as January.

There are also two or three other housing projects on the drawing

board that will help keep pace with increased enrollment, Craig said.

Jain, however, is not enthusiastic about the prospects of moving again

at the end of the semester.

“I don’t want to have to readjust and move all my stuff, reactivate my

phone and change my address,” Jain said.