A closer look: Help available for apartment seekers

Many late-spring apartment hunters’ efforts to secure a
place to live for the fall may be more confusing than necessary
because they aren’t aware of campus resources available to
them.

The UCLA Community Housing Office offers assistance to the UCLA
community, including students, faculty, staff, post-doctorate
students and researchers. Along with apartment listings, they also
offer information about private resident halls, houses and roommate
openings.

“There are 100 listings at any given time,” said
Alejandra Bonilla, a student staffer at the Community Housing
Office.

“It’s helpful because you can get an idea of what
you’re looking for. You can compare prices and find out
what’s a good deal based on the listings,” she
said.

The office also offers “The Guide to Living Off
Campus” on its Web site, which informs students about issues
such as contracts and security deposits. They are also open to
answer any specific questions and guide students to phone numbers
and resources to help them with their search.

“Many students use the drive-around and look-for-signs
method, but don’t know that our service is free to
students,” Bonilla said.

A student ID number is the only requirement to gain access to
the many listings .

“There’s still plenty of time to find
something,” Bonilla said.

Brentwood Management, a company that lists with the Community
Housing Office, said their busiest time for apartment seekers is in
August and September.

“The majority of students who rent from us are graduate
students, but we have a lot of undergrads too,” said Kathy
Sermeno, a Brentwood Management employee.

“We also use Westside Rentals to list our spaces, but we
get a lot of students calling from the UCLA housing office,”
Sermeno said.

UCLA also offers housing contracts for University Apartments in
the Westwood area. The university owns 2,251 apartments which it
rents out to graduates, undergraduates and faculty.

“Extra spaces are held for incoming transfer students, but
after June 1, the unclaimed apartments will be open again,”
Foraker said.

Though UCLA offers these services to all students, Foraker said,
“Knowledge of these services is not as great for freshman and
sophomore students.”

Many students find themselves misinformed about the resources
available to them through the university.

“We looked online for the University Apartments, but we
thought it was only for the upper division students,” said
Lidia Romero, a first-year chemistry student, of her and her
roommate’s apartment-searching troubles.

“If we had known the truth about the university housing,
things would have been different,” Romero said.

Noushafarin Khoshlesan, a third-year biology student who
currently lives in university-owned Gayley Towers and is searching
for a new apartment for next year, said she misses the security of
knowing early on where she will live in the fall.

“I wish I had applied again,” said Khoshlesan.
“After junior year you have to get into a lottery, and I
didn’t think I had very good chances.”