The current housing debacle at UCSB is the result of administrative incompetence, greed, and a robotic commitment to increase enrollment. One entity determines the number of students arriving each year — UCSB. This crisis was foreseeable, and the administrators involved need to be removed; starting at the top. The UCSB fish is rotting from the head.
Chancellor Henry Yang’s housing crisis is solvable; he needs to book nearby hotels to accommodate his clientele. Attendance always drops after the fall, and with students tripling up in UCSB’s on- and off-campus housing, a COVID outbreak could lead to significant attrition. Asking staff and the community to open their homes for visitors during an outbreak is irresponsible. Use the federal dollars you culled while not opening during COVID and pay up.
UCSB must eliminate their on-campus parking fees for students. That will encourage commuters to rent off-campus housing without having to purchase a $600 annual parking pass. Students living in vehicles would be safe in campus parking structures. Yang could rent out the faculty club. He could purchase Pallet homes. Now that’s ironic. Isla Vista’s parks and community parking lot were full of homeless living in Pallets and tents during the pandemic, and UCSB refused to open its empty dorms a stone’s throw away. Now the shoe is on the ivory foot.