Housing conditions worse than expected

By: W. Earle Simpson/Staff Writer

In the Spring 2010 semester, Patience Ekpo transferred form the University of North Texas to FIU to study for her master’s in global strategic communications.

When she arrived at the University, she accepted housing accommodation at the University Park Apartments at Modesto Maidique Campus where she shared a one-bedroom-double with a roommate she considered untidy and disrespectful.

In Fall 2010, to avoid sharing facilities, Ekpo opted to live in a one-bedroom- single at the Bay Vista Housing, but when she moved in, she said she got the shock of her life.

“Housing here is very crusty and run down,” Ekpo said. “They should invest more money into improving the facilities.

“When I lived at the University Park Apartments, I complained the rent was too high for the poor facilities we got there, but Bay Vista housing has got nothing on UPA.”

Ekpo is one of the many students living at Bay Vista who said they are unhappy with the living conditions there. Of the 15 Bay Vista students interviewed for this story, 12 of them, or 86 percent, expressed dissatisfaction with issues such as dilapidated buildings, unrepaired ceilings, broken toilets, mold infestation, untimely work order responses and pest infestation. Three hundred students live at the Bay Vista housing complex.

Ekpo who did her undergraduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said while at Rutgers, she lived in a modern housing facility. She said compared to that facility, the Bay Vista housing condition is appalling.

“This place is ghetto,” she said. “My shower sucks. I can never get the right temperature. I waste my time in the shower almost on a daily basis playing with the temperature settings. I can never get it either not too hot or not too cold. Most of the time, it is too hot and I get burned.

“Also, my toilet does not work. For one week, it flushes all day every day. I should not have to sit there and listen to my toilet flushing 24 hours for a week because housing is stupid.

“This building is so old and crusty, they should just knock it down and build another dorm,” Ekpo said

Bay Vista was the first University housing facility and the only one built at BBC. It was built in 1983 under the administration of then University president Gregory B. Wolfe, according to James Wassenaar, executive director of Student Affairs Operations and Auxiliary Services.

Wassenaar said because the president did not have a housing professional on staff at that time, he opted for a private developer who conceived a structure with design standards typical to those of a Holiday Inn motel.

“It really was not conceived as a student residence hall,” Wassenaar said. “In today’s context, residence halls are very different living design solutions for students.”

Ekpo and many of the students agree the 1983 standards used to build Bay Vista are unsuitable today and consequently are at the center of their housing discomfort.

“They made it so you cannot open the windows,” Ekpo said. “If you are cooking and something is burning, you have to open the door which lets the bugs in and I am not big on bugs.”

Public relations senior Lucia Pineda is also not big on bugs.

“The first day I got there, the room was very dirty,” she said. “The bathroom and room floor were covered with stains and mold and there were cockroaches in the building.”

Pineda said because the conditions were so poor, she and two of her friends moved off campus. She said the apartments on the first floor flood on a regular basis causing water to come in contact with some electrical circuits, which, in one instance, caused severe electrical shock to one of her friends. The building should be demolished and a new one built, she said.

Between the time Bay Vista was built and now, one modern and four ultra-modern housing facilities have been built at MMC: the University Park Apartments were built in 1985, Panther Hall in 1995, University Park Towers in 2000, Everglades Hall in 2002 and Lakeview Village in 2006.

In addition, Wassenaar said planning is under way for another phase of expansion that will add another 1,200 beds to the MMC housing capacity.

That addition will give MMC approximately 4,200 beds in comparison to the approximately 375 at BBC.

Many of the Bay Vista students said these facts speak to the disrespect the authorities display for the BBC, but Wassenaar disagrees.

“We are in the process of developing new facilities for BBC housing,” he said. “But until the debt for the BBC housing building is retired in 2016 and as the president’s new enrollment plan is better detailed and we understand how it is going to impact the true demand for on-campus housing at BBC in terms of the type of students we will be recruiting, we won’t be able to devise a housing solution to replace the Bay Vista.”

Until then, students like hospitality management senior Chrystal Gonzales will have to continue living with conditions she considers uncomfortable.

“Right now a part of the ceiling in my bathroom has fallen down for more than a week and it is still not repaired despite many follow ups,” she said.

Meanwhile, for journalism senior Matara Thomas and Danny Portnoy, hospitality management junior, their most pressing problem is the surprise visits from the residential assistants and maintenance personnel to their rooms.

“There is no privacy,” Portnoy said. “The RAs, maintenance personnel and everybody else come into our rooms whenever they want to. But I think the time they come should be scheduled so we know when they are coming.”

In addition, the students said amenities at BBC are lacking in comparison to those at the MMC.

“The amenities are limited,” Thomas said. “For example, there was once a computer lab open to all housing residents, but since the beginning of Fall 2010 semester, it’s been closed and turned into a study room.”

The students pointed out the UP Towers complex, for instance, has multiple green areas, gazebos, luxury swimming pool, five social lounges, two multipurpose lounges, Wi-Fi lounges, vending areas and other amenities, many of which are missing or limited at Bay Vista.

Wassenaar said that is comparing apples to oranges, but many of the students said the difference in residential rent at the campuses pales in comparison to the significant differences in amenities.

For Catherine Bondie, biology senior, the many amenities at MMC housing keep her living there.

“I have lived here since my freshman years,” she said.

“Obviously I love and enjoy living here. The gym is amazing and the pool is very nice.

“If you put in a work order, the maintenance men come pretty fast actually. I am surprised, but they do. And I have never seen any bugs or pests around here.”

Some of the students said if it were not for the convenience of living near their classrooms, they would move off campus.

However, Wassenaar said he looks forward to the day when all of the University’s housing inventories will reflect the modern residence standards present in most of the housing solutions at MMC.

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