Despite city efforts to engage students in neighborhood issues, only five students attended a joint ward meeting held by Evanston officials on Northwestern’s campus Thursday night.
Many Evanston residents attended the meeting, held by Ald. Jane Grover (7th) and Ald. Delores Holmes (5th), whose wards include parts of campus and nearby off-campus housing.
“Rather than expect the students to come to me, I thought I would take my meeting to the students,” Grover said. “I try to remember all the time that students are residents too.”
The meeting addressed neighborhood and off-campus housing issues such as announcing plans for the construction on Sheridan Road and explaining typical off-campus housing violations.
Jeff Murphy, assistant director of property standards and housing rehabilitation, said not many students know they can call the Property Standards Division of the City of Evanston with problems such as heating or poor sanitary conditions.
Many students also do not fully understand the city codes and what rights they have, Murphy said, citing a case two years ago where a student was living in a basement with a sewage pipe. It broke during the Thanksgiving break, and the landlord did some minor repairs but asked the student to clean up the raw sewage herself. A week later, the pipe broke again. Because the student never called city officials, they did not have the right to enter the apartment and resolve the issue.
Until the city establishes its 3-1-1 information call center in March, students experiencing housing problems can call the Evanston Police Department and request an inspection. If it is an emergency, NU will arrange short-term housing for the residents.
University officials will create a centralized website for off-campus housing issues to be released tentatively at the end of the year, Associated Student Government President Claire Lew said. The website will list what rights off-campus residents have, what they should be wary of and what they can ask a landlord to address.
“Information is one of the key things that students lack about what their rights are as a tenant,” Lew said.
Weinberg senior Anil Wadhwani, who lives off campus, said he came to the meeting because it was accessible and a good opportunity to meet his representatives. He said he had an idea what the housing standards were but did not have any details.
“I think meetings would be more useful if we had an opportunity to have a civil discussion – less talking to you, more talking with you,” Wadhwani said. “There was more discussion after the meeting.”
More students might have attended if the meeting had been better publicized, Wadhwani said. He said he found out from an e-mail sent to off-campus students from Dean of Students Burgwell Howard.
The aldermen have expressed interest in holding such meetings frequently to improve town-gown relations, ASG External Relations Vice President Ethan Merel said.
“It should be the beginning of closer community relations between permanent and student residents,” Merel said. “It’s an ongoing conversation that needs to take place and will take place in order to improve relations.”
