It was recently posted on the Cal Poly Humboldt housing page that new options are expected to be put in place for many returning students. However these housing options are not dorms on campus, but motel rooms.
Cal Poly Humboldt has partnered with three different motels in the Giuntoli
area– the Comfort Inn, Motel 6, and Super 8–each of them offering about 100 beds. With around 2,000 plus students expected to return; many are not pleased with the school.
“I definitely am concerned about how it could impact the community at large, and I just think it’s kind of unfair considering a lot of these students have been loyal to this campus,” A Cal Poly Junior said. “All of a sudden it’s like, ‘I don’t really care that you’ve been here two, three, four or five years, just kind of figure it out.’”
Alexandria Monet is a student hoping to finish their last semester this upcoming fall and is disappointed by the school’s plans for returning students.
“Honestly, the feeling so far just kind of feels like betrayal because some of us, like, for me only have one semester,” Monet said. “Someone else might have a year, and it just feels like we’re just kind of being thrown out in the streets.”
Even students who are currently living off-campus like Angel Cortez-Ramirez said that the living conditions in a motel room does not meet the need for a full-time student.
“With just housing options being in hotels […] it’s not the same as going home to like your own bed or like a comfortable stove that I could cook something on,” Ramirez said. “I can’t physically do that anywhere when I travel in a hotel, I can’t imagine that being where I live; like our school didn’t get any bigger, so there’s not enough seats in the library with all incoming students […] So you’re going to go home to a hotel room to do work, that doesn’t sound very academically reassuring.”
With returning students wondering what their plan might become in fall–this would mean more demand for affordable off-campus housing in an already tense housing market.
“I was planning on moving off campus with a group of friends starting in the summer anyways but now my concern is more like I have no safety net in this case,” Cal Poly Junior said. “There’s going to be a much larger volume of people looking for housing now at the same time, it decreases our chances of being able to find something that’s affordable and close to campus because everybody’s going to be looking for the same thing.”
Cal Poly Senior, Rebecca Frankl, is currently living in the Comfort Inn and says that there are definitely pros and cons.
“I’m okay with it, the two big issues are parking […] I am consistently about 5 minutes late for my 10 a.m. because getting a reliable parking spot on campus is a nightmare,” Frankl said. “There is no freezer in the rooms, we just have a fridge and a microwave and I thought not having a stove would be the worst issue, but actually the worst issue is not having a freezer.”
Cal Poly had recently given the OK to start the construction for their new off-campus housing located at the Craftsman Mall–but Phase 1 will be ready for occupancy in Fall 2025.
“We should want to grow our school and increase our community size, but not at the cost of where they’re (students) sleeping and feeling comfortable in a house,” Ramirez said.
