For the majority of students, off-campus housing involves signing a 12-month lease. Most of us assumed we would be living in our homes for the length of our lease, but COVID-19 and the closing of our universities forced us to leave our college towns and move back home with our families.
I was one of the many students facing difficulties with my off-campus housing after my university transitioned to online learning in March. Within just a few days I found myself having to choose between returning home to shelter in place with my family or unnecessarily staying alone in Sacramento. While I chose to return home because my classes were moving online and my family’s business needed extra support, my lease on my off-campus apartment wouldn’t expire until December 2020 — a week after I am set to graduate.
Employed or not, this is an extremely large amount of money for a college student to pay on such short notice. Like most college students — I didn’t have a spare $3,500 that I could afford to lose.
After a few months and a lot of credit card debt, I was able to pay out my lease. Unfortunately, many of my peers were not given that option and were forced to continue paying rent for months.
It’s been six months since the pandemic took over our lives and students don’t have any more agency than when this began. Over the course of half a year, thousands of students have had to make life-altering decisions. Breaking a lease in order to safeguard our health and financial well-being shouldn’t be a hard fought debate.
Ruth is a first-generation senior at Sacramento State University where she is majoring in Political Science with a minor in Deaf Studies. On her campus, Ruth is an active member of several political, ethnic, and social clubs as well as the Vice President to Students for Reproductive Justice.