I sat down in the stacks of Founders Library as the fall semester began to speak with someone about the housing problem on campus. The only problem was, I had shown up on time and my guest had still not arrived. Corey Bowen came into the library and sat in front of me all of 30 minutes late, sweat on his brow, apologizing profusely, and ready to talk. He explained to me that his housing situation had him staying in Suitland, Maryland (an hour away from our campus) and sleeping on a couch of the drafty basement he was renting for the year from a small family he met from an ad. This was not the life he was accustomed to living, but he decided he had to tough it out if it meant he could still go to school and get his education.

I met Corey through a mutual friend who told me that he was having similar problems that I had heard multiple other students having on campus. The only issue was– nobody wanted to talk about it. There was a stigma surrounding the “homeless at Howard” narrative. It stemmed from an actual student who did become homeless and after reaching out to media outlets, he was offered housing from an alum of Howard University. Though for some, the stigma wore off once it started happening to more and more students.

Though they’ve done a good job of hiding it from popular attention, Howard University is definitely going through a housing crisis. Like many others in my class at Howard, Corey thought he might be able to “finesse” his housing without paying the $200 RSVP deposit as many others did in the past. After paying thousands for sub-par dorm housing, Corey’s family didn’t want to pay the deposit. However, the 2017-2018 school year would turn out to be a difficult time to find housing for any students on campus. I, myself, was forced to move off campus after the office of Resident housing lost my online housing forms. After which, instead of them saying they lost my paperwork, the office called me three different times to ask questions that should’ve been on my housing form. Once I asked to see a copy of my form, they, of course, were unable to find it. So I left.

On top of the embezzlement scandal, Howard University’s treatment of students and housing is yet another piece of news the school would hate for mass media to publish. The school continues to partner with major corporations/organizations like Google and the NFL to open new buildings, campuses, and career opportunities, but continues to neglect the state of the properties on campus. I’ve stayed in dorms with no A/C in the summer, no heat in the winter. When I moved into the Harriet Tubman Quadrangle, I was greeted by the roaches and rats who clearly had been living there long before I decided to show up, brown and unclean water fountains. This was just the freshman dorms.

Sidenote: I would love to commend the Hilltop for their Protest issue where they not only posted photos of the dorms and their faults, but they also allowed the student’s voices to really tell their stories of what it’s like to sit on this hilltop and be neglected by the administration, while still being expected to give back as part of this “talented tenth” narrative.

During my research, I found that the school had not only promised to offer housing for at least 70% of their students by 2026. In promising to do this, they sold Carver Hall, Meridian Hall, and Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall. The school ended up selling the dorms for millions in deals with outside companies, but the school has yet to answer if the money will go toward our debt or if it will go toward building new housing for students.

The university closed West towers during the 2016-2017 school year to renovate the building and reopened in the fall of 2017. Then they proceeded to close the East tower to renovate as well.

(Two separate anonymous sources working within the office of Residence Life have said when the school decided to clean out the West tower, they found over 150 rats occupying in the building.)

With this record breaking freshman class that Howard accepted in HU21’s class, the school began literally stacking kids like sardines by stacking beds on top of each other and turning doubles into triples and triples into quadruples. Clearly, there wasn’t much room for housing on campus.

Even now, Howard University recently posted a survey to ask what they should do about the empty buildings the school owned on Georgia Ave. Some of them were old housing options, but most students were unaware of the survey’s circulation. In my personal opinion, I highly doubt those buildings will be turned into student housing. More than likely, the buildings may be sold to another developer and gentrified with higher rent prices than us students can afford and we will be forced off campus again.

However, it may just be poor execution by the man who came up with the plan: President Wayne A.I. Frederick. When he became interim president of the university, Frederick announced his plan to generate funds for the school by selling off parts of campus real estate. Which, at the time, was a good idea. He was faced with the problem of a debt crisis and he presented a solution, but should the students on campus be the ones forced to suffer for the greater good of students to come?

Check out the 2017 State of the University Address here.

It was incredibly necessary that housing be one of the stipulations demanded by HUResist in their historic 9 day protest. Students were seeing their housing vanish before their eyes. “Glitches in the system” caused students to not register for housing again. Underclassmen ended up in Upperclassmen housing and Upperclassmen ended up on the streets to make room for new underclassmen. How many times should we be placated by major problems being reduced to a “glitch in the system” before we ask for a new system?

Read the full story here.