West Chester University students protest affordable housing shortage

For 17-year-old Emily Miller, getting a college degree is a must — even if it means sleeping in their car.

“I’m really dedicated to getting my degree, and I’ll do anything I can,” said the West Chester University computer science major. “If I have to live in my car, it’s going to be something that has to happen.”

Miller, who is the first in their family from rural Christiana, Pa., to attend college, was among about 30 protesters who battled the cold Wednesday evening to voice their fears over what they see as a growing crisis affecting students — a lack of affordable and available housing.

The students marched from West Chester’s campus to the home of the university’s president, Christopher M. Fiorentino, crowding the elegant home’s gate while bellowing chants of “I can’t go home, I have no home.”

A Change.org petition outlines their demands: To prevent student homelessness and the financial pressure from the high costs of off-campus living, the university should build more dorms and provide stipends for pricier, off-campus alternatives.

The effort began this month after some students received emails notifying them that they had been denied a spot in university-owned dorms for the 2023 fall semester.

Notably, students were critical of the university’s relationship with University Student Housing, the private housing company that operates a sizable portion of the school’s on-campus dorms and falls under the school’s tax-exempt nonprofit, the West Chester University Foundation.

West Chester University has around 5,200 on-campus dorms, according to a university spokesperson. A little over half are owned and operated by University Student Housing, and cost considerably more than the university-owned dorm rooms.

For example, a spot in a university-owned double room on North Campus runs students $2,897 per semester. A double offered by University Student Housing, meanwhile, charges nearly twice that: $5,396 per semester.

Miller was denied a spot in university-owned housing, they said, their only hope resting in what they said was a lengthy waiting list. To afford their pricier USH-owned dorm, they work three on-campus jobs while juggling time as a volunteer firefighter.

For some students, finding alternatives has become a struggle.

Grace Zwierzyna, a junior media major whose application for university-owned housing was denied, said securing lower-cost housing is critical. Zwierzyna, who grew up not far from the university, sees her classmates applying for on-campus dorms in droves as costs for off-campus apartments have skyrocketed.

“We’re seeing close to $1,000 a month to share a bedroom with somebody,” Zwierzyna said. “I’m starting to think that’s kind of unacceptable. That’s kind of highway robbery, and I think we as upperclassmen students are realizing that we’re going into a tougher economy than ever before.”

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in West Chester — an increasingly popular borough at the edge of the Philadelphia suburbs, with a downtown full of trendy restaurants and boutiques — is $1,858, according to the rental website RentCafe. Only around 20% of comparable units in the borough rent for under $1,500.

University president Fiorentino acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that demand for on-campus living has greatly increased this year, as in-person classroom instruction has returned to pre-pandemic norms.

“Rental rates have been increasing, so all of a sudden this very stable pattern that we’ve been observing for many, many years has shifted on us, and of course all of this happened coming out of the pandemic,” Fiorentino said. “2019 was our last normal year.”

Fiorentino said the university can’t immediately create additional housing, citing zoning issues in areas surrounding campus as well as projected declines in enrollment in the coming decade due to demographic shifts in the state.

Fiorentino said there had been the possibility of adding on-campus dormitories, but that the pandemic caused the university to “step back” from that plan. As a short-term solution, Fiorentino said, the university could potentially retrofit its current dorms, adding more beds to rooms where zoning rules allow.

But for current students, the housing crisis is more immediate.

Stuck between exorbitant prices of off-campus apartments and the limited availability of university dorms, Zwierzyna said some fellow students are questioning whether they can continue attending West Chester at all.

Chloe Stengel, a sophomore from Abington, marched alongside protesters as she described how her job as a resident adviser — with the perk of discounted housing — is the only thing tethering her to the chance of earning a degree.

“I grew up with nothing,” Stengel said. “My mom told me from the time I was in kindergarten, ‘If you want to go to college, you’re gonna’ need to figure it out.’ So that’s what I did.”

An Instagram post from @wcu_housingcrisis — a student-run account documenting the protest movement — garnered responses from students with similar stories. Some said they had to commute from nearby hotels, crash on mattresses in crowded houses, or take a gap year to avoid paying rent.

“I’ve grown up in this town,” Zwierzyna said. “I’ve seen how housing here has gotten worse over the years. I told myself in high school I was never going to come here, and some days, I frankly wish I listened to myself.”