Soteros-McNamara is a fourth-year political science student.
By Thomas Sosteros-McNamara
University Student Association Council external vice president
Evan Okamura seeks to assure students that he is working diligently
to ameliorate the housing crunch at the university
(“”˜Access’
must include affordable housing,” Viewpoint, Jan.
31).
On its face, his goals are honorable, and the direction is
certainly a positive one. Nevertheless, it is clear Okamura has no
concept of the depth or complexity of the situation he has engaged.
This is not to say all is lost, but rather, that he and those
joining him in this quest ought to do more research and careful
consideration.
Okamura espouses that the university must change its stance on
housing from auxiliary to university-supported. There is nothing
wrong with this sort of agenda, but university-supported housing is
really not the issue. The issue is whether or not state money, as
appropriated by the California state legislature, can go to fund
housing, especially since it is now considered a
financially-independent part of the campus.
If state money cannot go to fund this project, then
Okamura’s change of nomenclature is a dead letter.
UCLA’s Housing Office would have to manage these new resident
units itself. Ultimately this means the price of these off-campus
options would rise steadily, as does on-campus housing every year
because the Housing Office will continue to face increasing costs
as well as new development and construction.
If California can allow state money to go toward housing, it
will prove a colossal undertaking. This is not because legislators
do not want to aid student housing, but that independent sectors of
the university, such as athletics, Associated Students of UCLA,
parking and other areas would start holding their hands out as
well, enmeshing the legislature in a free-for-all scenario.
It is possible that the legislators will act exactly as Okamura
predicts and spurn other entities in favor of housing, but it will
be a contentious matter regardless.
Okamura also mentions that sharp rises in rent prices in
Westwood is a result of the absence of rent control. This is where
his information is completely wrong. The reason prices rise so
uncontrollably is because Westwood has rent control in place.
If a person moves into any Westwood building constructed before
1978, and stays for multiple years, the landlord may not raise
their rent by more than 4 percent a year. Obviously, there are
newer projects in Westwood, but the majority of buildings fall into
this category. When one considers that students will filter in and
out of the neighborhood fairly quickly, rent control reveals itself
upon closer inspection to be a horrible idea. Because of the
existing policy, it is newer residents, like students, who will
shoulder an inordinate amount of the burden caused by someone who
has lived in a complex for 20 years. If prices could be balanced
out over all units equally, many long-time residents would leave,
thus increasing supply as well as lowering initial rates for new
residents.
True, without rent control, nothing prevents prices from
becoming wholly representative of demand, but no student will ever
bear that burden as much as they do currently. Also, if supply
increases, prices will invariably fall.
Will Okamura and the University of California Student
Association find resistance to overturning rent control?
Undoubtedly, but it would be best for students in the local
community.
Okamura also crows about the passage of Assembly Bill 1611.
Unfortunately, there is nothing promising in the language of the
bill. The amount of money promised is around $24 million, and the
language where public universities are mentioned is flexible while
private universities are held to more narrow consideration.
Assuming, however, that the bill is implemented as Okamura
suggests, (which is highly possible), “non-profit university
entities” have to manage any new housing bought, maintained
and managed with money from the bill. So it seems that unless UCLA
makes a brand new agency ““ like UCLA Housing ““ the
Office of Residential Life will start becoming a landlord.
Even if the money from AB 1611 allows UCLA to buy more
apartments to allocate to students, the amount of money from this
bill is finite. Unless, the legislature decides once again to
change the current state of doing business, UCLA housing will have
to constantly raise prices to buy more capital so that it can buy
more apartments and build more dormitories. This of course would
not sit well with Okamura’s desire to make housing less
costly.
The tragedy is that Okamura ““ and internal vice president
Kennisha Austin ““ remain serious and committed to solving the
housing crunch. Student leaders are given only a one-year term, and
in many ways, it prevents them from interfering in the
university’s grand plan.
Nevertheless there is hope, as Okamura and Austin’s own
slate for many years stayed in power and managed to repeal SP-1 and
SP-2 ““ which banned affirmative action at the UC ““ long
after the initial members of that struggle moved on. That same
sense of long-term vision and endurance will be required from
current officers and their successors if the student housing plight
of 2009 is to improve upon what it is today.