I didn’t expect my transition into off-campus housing to be as smooth as that of my wealthier classmates. I had moved into the dorms with all the stuff I could fit into two suitcases. By my second year, most people I knew could afford to stay in the New School’s dorms (which, according to CampusGrotto.com, are the most expensive in the country) or had their parents co-sign for them on pricey, renovated apartments in the East Village, Lower East Side, Williamsburg, or Bushwick.
I, on the other hand, was stuck in a sticky situation. My father had to sign a loan to pay for the remainder of my housing, three weeks before the end of my first freshman semester, or else I couldn’t come back to school in the spring. This was due to a miscommunication with The New School’s financial aid office. We thought that this cost had been covered by my scholarship.
My scholarship didn’t cover the cost of the dorms, and I couldn’t afford to pay $18,000 a year to live in the dorms.
Plus, I wanted to live in an apartment, where my freedom wouldn’t be limited by all of the dorm’s peculiar rules.Each dorm resident could only have three guests signed in at a time during the daytime, for example, and only one guest after midnight.
Due to the stress of finals, I didn’t have much time to make a decision about my housing situation. I opted for a sublet in Ridgewood for a month, until I could find something more permanent. I didn’t want to go home to Anaheim, California, and then try to find a place when I came back for school in the fall.
A couple of my friends invited me to join Gypsy Housing, which is a general Facebook group for New York City apartments that is angled towards people in the performing arts, not The New School, I also joined the New School Off Campus Housing Facebook group, which has over 3,000 members and is run by a “real-estate professional” named Sterling Overshown.
Gypsy Housing has clear guidelines for who is allowed to join the group in its description: “A group to connect members of the NEW YORK PERFORMING ARTS COMMUNITY who have a need for housing. THIS IS AN EXCLUSIVE GROUP…IF YOU DO NOT FIT THE QUALIFICATIONS, PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST TO JOIN…YOU WILL NOT BE ADDED.”
Also included in the page’s description is an invitation for members to “invite your friends to join this group. The more members we have, the more housing options there are.”
However, the page, allegedly designed for artists trying to find cheap rooms in Brooklyn and Queens, is a public group and is stocked with agents from real estate companies like Nooklyn, one of many real estate agencies responsible for moving tenants into renovated apartments in gentrifying areas.
The first apartment I looked at in the New School Off Campus Housing Facebook group was a “BEAUTIFUL, SUNNY ROOM IN BUSHWICK, $800 A MONTH, COOL ROOMMATES,” and needed a guarantor that makes $80,000 a year. This was for a four-bedroom apartment, in which every resident needed to have their own guarantor.
My mom is disabled and doesn’t work, so obviously she was out of the question. My dad is a truck driver for a produce company, and doesn’t make that much either, and has already put so much effort into helping finance my college career.
I looked through these housing groups for hours. Every listing that didn’t mention a guarantor usually came with a pricey security deposit, ranging from $1,000 up to almost $4,000. The New School Off Campus Housing Facebook group’s page is utterly useless for any lower-or-middle income student trying to find housing.
In its description, this page advertises itself as “a network for New School students who are considering moving off campus… [that] was created to ease the process of moving off campus for students at the New School.” Additionally, a “disclaimer” within the description highlights how “the use of The New School Off Campus Housing is at your own risk” and that neither the group’s founder nor “the university can be held liable for any scams or cons done in this group.”
When emailing TNS administrators for help at the beginning of my search for a place to live, the only resource they gave me was a Google spreadsheet with various apartment listings. I also asked them if they had any control over the Facebook page, and they stated that they were not affiliated with it.
Although it was helpful that most of the listings on the Google spreadsheet were for rooms in apartments rather than entire apartments themselves, most of the asking prices were over $1000. There were some cheaper apartments, farther out in areas like Midwood, but the document featured single rooms in Chelsea for up to $2,000 a month. When I asked where they got the listings from, New School Student Housing replied, via email, “They are from people in the area who reach out to us and ask to list their apartments.”
Although I now have a good paying job, and paying bills has given me enough credit to sign the lease on my own place, getting to this point was a long, tough journey.
If I had more help from the school’s internal housing office, this whole process would have been a lot easier.
Because of this, students like myself are forced into alternative ways of finding housing.
There are students who sleep in the University Center every night because they can’t find a place to live.
There are students who have to go back home, with no choice but to leave school, because they can’t find a place to live.
And there still isn’t an easy way to navigate space online to assist low-income students in the off-campus housing process.
Even if a student works a job outside of school, most students are not making four times the apartment’s monthly rent, which is what is required for a security deposit. I, and other working students, can’t take on more hours at these minimum-wage jobs, due to the demanding workloads of all seven divisions of The New School.
The New School’s housing office should do a better job orienting students to the various housing options available to them, and should take more responsibility for warning students about possible scams or pitfalls in the search for housing.
I decided to express my anger about this by writing posts in both the the Gypsy Housing and the New School Off Campus Facebook group. In Gypsy Housing, the members gave my sentiments positive recognition. However, I was blocked from the Facebook group.
I was banned from the New School Facebook group for expressing my opinion, for bringing up an important point about the difficulties of housing for low income students.
I believe that The New School should monitor the activity in this Facebook group, which is otherwise unaffiliated with the university itself, and should try to prevent relators from turning our educational aspirations into a cash cow.
The housing office should also provide more guidance for low-income students who are navigating New York real estate Not all of us here come from money. Not all of us have the time to make more money to simply survive, while trying to get the education we need and deserve.
Graphic by Hazel Ng