Freshmen at the UA occupy 80 percent of the 23 residence halls on campus. The remaining 20 percent is a mixture of sophomore, junior and senior students, but at the end of each year all students across campus are faced with a rise in stress levels as they try to figure out where they will live next — whether it’s in a residence hall or off campus.
UA students have many options when it comes to off-campus housing. Some choose to live in their greek chapter houses, while others gravitate toward apartment buildings or houses in the Tucson community. One thing that remains constant throughout the UA student body is the difficulty that comes with figuring out where and with whom they will end up residing.
“It can be so hard to figure out,” said Nicole Ulricksen, an elementary education sophomore, who currently lives in her sorority house. “I think next year I am going to go the apartment route. It seems like it is a lot safer.”
The apartment buildings closest to campus are the Hub at Tucson at 1011 N. Tyndall Ave., and the recently renamed buildings Sol y Luna, previously known as Next Level, at 1020 N. Tyndall Ave.
Students undergo different experiences when they choose to move off-campus.
“I love the space, but it felt really weird having my own room after living in the dorms,” Ali Cerza, a marketing junior, said. “When you live off campus you have a lot more freedom, but it is less security.”
Other students agreed.
“We didn’t have a plan, we didn’t know where to look, and we didn’t have a relator,” said Jelena Duenas, a junior studying retail and consumer science. “We kind of just winged it and hoped for the best.”
In the midst of the anxiety people tend to come across when making these decisions regarding their future home, they forget the university has resources for this issue. The UA offers a free service for students called Off-Campus Housing, located at 501 N. Highland Ave.
OCH’s main focus is to provide students with information and tools to help make finding a home an easier experience, according to itswebsite.
“We help thousands of students each year,” Teresa Klinger, program coordinator for OCH, said. “When on-campus housing is full, they send them to us.”
OCH offers five different sponsorship packages to property managers and homeowners who are looking to advertise their rooms or houses. These packages depend on the level of access they will have for their advertisements.
Klinger said that OCH is busiest between the months of January and May because that’s when people are trying to figure out their living situations for the upcoming fall.
“Some parents make initial contact with us and then hand it off to their children, but we have a good amount of students calling us on their own,” Klinger said.
Students can visit the OCH website and search for roommates, as well as browse a feed of available listings from properties such as The Cadence, The Retreat at Tucson, The District on 5th, NorthPointe Student Apartments and much more. These listings are both online and in guidebooks that can be found at different locations around campus.
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