Today I will receive a letter from Hopkins' real estate group, WP&M, regarding my upcoming eviction. This will be the first formal notification I or any Dell House resident will have received. However representatives from the dean's office said last week that residents were notified of the move's possibility in April prior to signing their leases. This is simply not true. No residents were aware of the move's possibility until rumors started circulating around the Dell House a few weeks ago. Some residents first heard of the University's scheme when they read about it last week in this newspaper.
This is reflective of a discouraging pattern of negligent treatment of students at this university. Presumably every current Dell House resident would not have chosen to live there if they had known that they would be evicted in February. Residents who renewed their leases in April were not notified that these were switched from year-long to month-to-month leases.
Hopkins should have been forthright with residents regarding the switch to month-to-month leases. It was evasive and disingenuous of Hopkins not to notify their residents of this change in their leases' fine print. Additionally the leasing office explicitly told month-to-month renters that they would be able to stay until May. Apparently Hopkins' word means nothing. The fact that certain residents of the Dell House have been called into the leasing office for "confidential" meetings has only exacerbated this problem of disjointed communication.
The prospect of having to leave in the middle of the academic year is something that no one in the Dell House had planned on. While Hopkins may offer us free movers and apartments in The Charles and Blackstone, this is insufficient compensation for having to leave our homes. We have been living here under the pretense that these apartments would be ours for the academic year. Many residents chose the Dell House for its relative affordability, and planned their funds accordingly. It is presumptious of Hopkins to expect that Dell House residents would be able to afford more expensive apartments. We remain in the dark as to how we will be compensated for the difference in price that living in another apartment building might entail.
There have been frequent rumors that Dell House residents will be relocated to the Charles or Blackstone in February. While there are many three-bedroom apartments in the Dell House,
The Charles and Blackstone only offer one- and two-bedroom apartments. Thus, Dell House residents, including myself, who currently occupy three-bedroom apartments, will be forced to split up with their current roommates. Will residents have to share bedrooms? Will our rents be higher because The Charles and Blackstone are more expensive?
I may not have any other choice, because one would be hard-pressed to find an apartment that will offer a lease starting in February and ending in May. I am concerned that a lease beginning in February would run until February of 2009 - so that I would have to either find another home for the remainder of my senior year, or lease my apartment until 2010. Ideally if renters must move to The Charles or Blackstone apartments those leases would only continue until the end of May, when more options would become available.
No Hopkins student should be forced to leave his or her Hopkins-owned apartment in the middle of an academic year. That Hopkins has such little consideration for its own students never ceases to shock me. Because Dell House residents live farther from campus, pay lower rents and are fewer in number, we are particularly vulnerable.
It should not be forgotten, however, that residents of the Dell House collectively spend millions of dollars on tuition and rent to be part of this University. Yet, Hopkins has chosen to disrespect this relationship by prematurely evicting us and repeatedly evading our questions and concerns. If Hopkins wants to show true respect for the students in the Dell House, it will find a way to let us stay until May 31. Hopkins' disrespect for its students will be reflected in something it actually does care about - its reputation.
