Notre Dame’s campus life council passed a resolution on Feb. 13 concerning off-campus housing. The decree, “A Resolution to Promote Fair Off-Campus Housing,” is the council’s first in three years.
The new resolution specifically addresses leasing for off-campus housing. For students who seek to live off-campus their senior year, it often requires signing leases well in advance, often upward of two years ahead of time. According to Molly Swartz, off-campus council president, the new resolution calls on the University and St. Joseph County to reform this system.
“Our main goal was based on the University of Michigan, which worked with the city of Ann Arbor to put in certain restrictions,” Swartz said. “The way that they phrased it … was to put in an ordinance saying that landlords are not allowed to make a renewal offer to the current tenant until 180 days into their current lease. Those tenants then have 30 days after receiving a renewal to decide if they want to renew, and those landlords are not allowed to lease it to anyone else until that renewal offer has been made.”
“Effectively, what Ann Arbor has done is make it so you can't sign a lease until six to eight months before you occupy the house,” Swartz added.
“I am incredibly proud of the work that Clay [Chauncey, a member if the off-campus council] and Molly [Swartz] have done this year in the Campus Life Council, and we were all thrilled to have this important resolution passed by a unanimous vote,” student body president Jerry Vielhauer wrote in a statement to The Observer.
The campus life council consists of representatives from several student groups on campus, including the student body president, hall senators, the student union’s off-campus senator and representatives from class council, among others. It also includes a number of rectors, faculty members and administration officials.
“It’s a little bit similar to senate. The main difference is that when we write and pass resolutions, they get sent to Fr. Gerry Olinger and the Office of Student Affairs,” Chauncey said. “It’s a broad range of people from around the University. And the idea is to craft these resolutions that get sent directly to Fr. Gerry.”
While the power to make these changes lies with the St. Joseph County Council, Chauncey hopes that the resolution will prompt the University to begin negotiations with the county to reform the leasing system.
“We’re not really giving specifics. That’s for the University and administration to decide,” he said. “But our goal is really just to alleviate the predatory practices of these off-campus housing situations and the pressure that they’re able to apply onto students so that we don’t have situations where people are signing a lease two years before they move in and then their financial situation changes.”
According to Swartz and Chauncey, this proposal has been raised several times over the past few years, but it has never gotten off the ground. In January, the issue came up again, and the pair decided to move forward with a resolution, which passed at their next meeting in February.
Swartz said she believed that one of the reasons resolutions like these have been so rare in recent years is due to misperceptions surrounding the powers of campus life council. “It really is such a direct route straight to the Office of Student Affairs that I think people forget about. They think that going through the senate is the most efficient route. I’m not saying one is or isn’t [more effective], but I think the power is almost forgotten,” she said.
Chauncey noted that although no resolutions are currently on the table, he hoped incoming members under the leadership of student body president-elect Elijah Jones could build on this recent progress.
“We have one more meeting in the month of March … but starting April 1, there will be a whole new campus life council with new people in the roles,” Chauncey said. “So we’re hopeful that they can use it to maximize the impact that the campus life council has on students.”
