University of Virginia Library

They'll Do It Every Time

Once again the Housing Committee has
displayed its unique capacity for acting
without regard for fairness or reason. In a
letter mailed out late last month, Mr. Titus,
acting for the committee, informed a group of
students that they might have to move out of
their off-Grounds housing by February. It
seems that the committee has revised its
standards for approval since last June and that
some facilities, which have always been listed
as approved may lose their approval as a
result. If they do, students living in them will
have to move out, regardless of their leases or
of the availability of alternative places to live.

The letter says: "...The operator of your
present accommodations was routinely
informed this summer that a new application
card for approval would have to be filed
before those accommodations could be certified
for the housing of University students.
The new application card is an improved
version of a previous card and continues the
long-standing requirement that owners or
managers sign statements agreeing to certain
principles...

"No satisfactory response has yet been
received from your landlord or building manager;
technically, therefore, your present accommodations
have not been approved for
this year. Because this failure to return the
signed card may have been an oversight, no
action will be taken before January 1.

"Students living in unapproved accommodations
will be required to move to approved
ones by no later than the beginning of
the second semester in February..."

It is obvious enough that the standards
revised are in the area of non-discrimination;
we whole-heartedly support the committee's
efforts to deny approval to prospective landlords
who discriminate in any way against any
student of the University. (The move is long
overdue). What we cannot accept, however, is
the sequence of the events involved in its
trying to put the revised policy into effect
now.

The average student now living in off-Grounds
housing ended up there as follows:
he went to the off-Grounds housing bureau in
the spring to secure its lists of off-Grounds
housing which would be available this year;
from the lists he selected the apartment of his
choice, and with luck, won the approval of
the landlord and signed a lease to rent the
apartment for this session; then he went his
merry way satisfied that he had a place to live
this year.

He returned to school in September and
duly occupied his apartment; then, three
months later, he was informed that he might
have to move out because his landlord had not
yet complied with a changed policy he had no
idea would be changed. So he must encourage
his landlord to comply; but if he fails, he must
begin what is bound to be a dismal and
discouraging search for a new place to live
from among those spurned by thousands of
other students who found more attractive or
convenient apartments. He must take an
apartment not of his choice because of a
situation he had no reason to think might
occur. He must move from housing he conscientiously
sought from the whole body of
that approved for his use because it is suddenly
no longer approved due to circumstances
beyond his control or anticipation - because
of an admirable but poorly-timed ruling from
the Housing Committee.

Had the committee given the students
reason to anticipate its change of attitude so
that they could have prepared for it in
advance, we would have no complaint - the
students could have checked with their landlords
before signing the lease and avoided the
unhappy situation altogether. As it happened,
however, the committee changed its standards
for approval, after many leases were already
signed, such that many facilities approved
when they were signed will no longer be
approved, to the complete surprise of the
students occupying them.

Surely a fairer and more reasonable approach
to the matter would have been for the
committee to make its new policy affective
only for new rentals this session and then for
all rentals in the future. It is presumptuous
and preposterous for it to ask unwilling
students to move out of their apartments in
the middle of a school year, not because they
rented housing which did not meet its standards,
but because it changed its standards such
that some housing was bound to lose its
approval. There is no logical rationale for
placing such a burden on students who have
done only what they are supposed to do.

We earnestly hope the committee will
modify its regulation so that students now
living with landlords who refuse to sign the
card do not have to move out, but with the
understanding that the landlords' accommodations
will not be approved in the future. It is
the landlords who are at fault, not the
students; as the regulation stands now, however,
it is the students who will suffer.

That the Housing Committee could make
an unreasonable, illogical, and totally unfair
move such as this is one more testimony that
the time for complete restructure and refilling
of the committee is way past due. It has
demonstrated beyond any doubt not only a
complete lack of sympathy with the students
whose lives it governs, but worse, practical
oblivion to the situations with which it is
concerned. Just as in the case of the current
director of the Selective Service System, it
will serve best when its duties have been
assigned to another.