University of Minnesota students faced obstacles and experienced stress While waiting to move to Identity Dinkytown.
Apartment managers at Identity Dinkytown have told tenants they will be able to move in by the end of August. However, one month after the initial move-in date, The building is not yet ready. Students were given the option of finding housing on their own or having Identity provide housing for them.
Annika Attia is in her final semester of university and living with her boyfriend in a house in Como while she waits to move to Identity.
“I still feel like I’m being forced into it because I didn’t sign the lease and they weren’t planning on living with me,” Attia said.
She shares a car with her brother and uses it to get to classes, work, and the university’s recreation and wellness center. Every day is different for her. She takes her classes two days a week, but she also has a full-time job.
When Atia attends classes in the West Bank, she drives from her boyfriend’s house and has to find a place to park on campus. On average, she said, parking on campus costs her between $6 and $10. If she lived in Identity, she could have taken the bus and saved her time and money.
Attiah goes to the gym every day and was excited to have a gym at Identity, but since the gym wasn’t ready and he is a part-time student, Attiah paid for a membership at RecWell.
“I understand that is their policy, but if the two-story 24-hour gym that was promised in the identity was open, we wouldn’t have had to pay for it,” Attia said. said.
Atia said she loves going out with friends, but because she doesn’t have housing in Dinkytown, she can’t fully enjoy nights out. Because she didn’t have an apartment, Atia had to sleep on her friend’s couch, pay for an Uber even though she knew they would drive her home, and limit the amount of drinks she had. I had to.
Atia added that all the anxiety she is experiencing stems from her not being calm, not trusting her identity, or not being able to communicate with her identity.
“It was tough to feel this way because I like to feel like I’m in control of situations, and now it’s in the hands of an identity that has been pretty sketchy before,” Attia said. .
Elise Verlaut is a fourth-year university student who ends up living with Atia in her identity. Verlaut commutes to campus from her parents’ home in Eden Prairie, where she works part-time as a nanny for her family, who live in Mercy Homes, she said.
Verlaut said her nanny’s shift starts at 7:45 a.m., which was the height of rush hour traffic, so she leaves the house at 6:45 a.m. every day. She says she packs lunch, snacks, gym clothes and everything else she needs each day. I need it all day.
“Everything has to be carefully planned,” Verlaut said.
Verlaut drives 30 minutes to and from school most days. Living at home has also made Verlaut’s studies even more difficult.
“Dad is watching the football game, but mom is in the kitchen and the dog is barking, so it’s hard to concentrate,” Verlaut said.
Sen. Lindsey Port, chair of the Housing and Homelessness Prevention Committee, lived in Dinkytown during her student days and sympathized with the students who came to campus in their first week with precarious living conditions. He said he is doing so.
“I know how stressful college can be, but I felt it was really unfair to put that on students and expect them to be able to cope with this obviously powerful company.” Port said.
Port said hearing the students’ testimony on Sept. 13 highlighted the power imbalance between tenants and landlords. She said she was shocked when she heard about the number of students who tried to terminate her contract with Identity.
Port added that she is grateful to the students for telling their stories and bringing the issue to the attention of the state.
“You can’t work on something like this without people willing to share their stories,” Port said. “This is a big part of actually getting the bill passed.”
Atia and Verlaut are scheduled to move into Identity on September 29th. Atia said she is hopeful that everything will go well and that she will eventually be able to move in.
“For us, we just want to live together, live on campus, and celebrate homecoming and all other events together,” Attia said.