Housing Survival Guide 2019

We hope this issue gives some insight into making the often crowded and inaccessible Berkeley landscape into something that resembles home.

In Ashley Cunningham’s first semester at UC Berkeley, she and her long-term boyfriend split up after 7 ½ years. Despite this hard emotional time, Cunningham still worked 30-plus hours a week and stayed in school full time.

Situated off Telegraph Avenue on Haste Street, People’s Park is a rich part of Berkeley’s history. The creation of the park was fueled by political activism in the 1960s, and the question of what to do with the site of the park has remained a contentious debate between activists and the campus for decades.

The Bay Area is experiencing a housing crisis, and UC Berkeley students are not unscathed. California legislators and local activists, however, are working to increase low-cost housing for students, and resources are available on campus to aid people struggling with housing insecurity.

After six months of walking to your dorm after long days, it’s time to worry about where you’ll be snoozing away when you miss those 8 a.m.s during sophomore year — a home where you can procrastinate and then do homework into the early morning, and a bed to curl up in for those cold winter nights.

I began paying rent to Everest Properties in 2017. My roommate had chanced upon an available apartment after weeks of dead ends, and we snatched it up in time for the fall semester — a stroke of luck in Berkeley’s frustrating housing market. While it was a blessing to have a roof over my head, knowing that I entered into a contract with that company causes my stomach to turn.

For the last two years, The Daily Californian has interviewed five UC Berkeley students about their housing situations. This year, The Daily Californian talked with four of those students to follow up on their housing journeys.

The road to finding your apartment for the next academic year is long and arduous, but if you start early and take the proper precautions, you’ll be able to find a place that you can survive and thrive in.

The Basic Needs Center opened its doors to the campus community Monday, making it the first center on campus to offer a wide variety of resource assistance programs to students.