Olivia Kehoe

Students and faculty returned to campus for the first day of classes Wednesday, with reactions ranging from nervousness to excitement.

When a Berkeley tenant’s roommate, a student at UC Berkeley, left the city a month before the pandemic unfolded, the tenant decided to renew the lease on their rent-controlled apartment. The tenant said they thought they could find another roommate, and they reckoned it would be hard to find a cheaper place to live.

Student workers at the Berkeley Student Cooperative, or BSC, organized a petition claiming that the BSC has allegedly failed to compensate them since the start of the fall semester.