Temporary Insanity

I live in a motel. It's not even a nice motel. It doesn't even have "magic fingers" or HBO. I don't want to be here. They promised me a dorm room, but when they didn't have one available this is where they put me.

You can stop laughing at me now. If you don't, I will gather up all 60 students who have lived at the Eugene Motor Lodge this year and we will come over to your dorm room or cozy apartment and start cramming "sanitized for your protection" strips into every orifice of your body until you feel some sympathy for us. Every year hundreds of god-fearing, law abiding UO students are forced to live in a motel after housing promised us space. And it's about time we rose up and did something about it.

Each year at the University of Oregon, University Housing overbooks the dorms. After all the dorm space has been filled, housing then offers space it does not currently have to the latest applicants to the University. This year housing offered room to over 150 students above and beyond what it had available at the beginning of the year. They do this every year because midway through the first semester, Housing loses a large number of students for a variety of reasons. People become disenchanted with school and move back home, they join the greek system, or they move into an apartment, etc.

They can then offer that vacant space to those students who applied late. This may sound like a good policy, except for one small problem. In the meantime, Housing has 150 students in limbo.

So those students get put in "temporary housing." The University screwed up my transfer application, and I did not get a housing application in until much later than I should have. So, even though it was not my fault, I wasn't too shocked that I had been assigned to live in temporary housing. I was, however, shocked to find out I was living in the Eugene Motor Lodge. Like over 60 other late applicants, I had been assigned to live in a motel. Many other late applicants have been given even stranger arrangements, like living in dorm lounges, and wherever Housing found to put them.

At first, living in a motel seemed like a good deal. There would be more space than a dorm room, maid service, and a pool. Unfortunately, this is not the case at The Eugene Motor Lodge. As soon as I got here any advantages that I had perceived were quickly dispelled. I did not have that much extra space. All the maids do is make the beds and clean the bathrooms. I don't care if my bed is made, and I wouldn't have to clean the bathrooms in the dorms either. Well, the place does have a pool, but it is very small and I don't think it has been heated since the Carter administration. Should anyone actually try and swim in it, they would probably find it so cold their nipples would be hard enough to scratch glass.

Aside from this, the motel is run down and in a very bad location. To their credit, management is trying to fix the place up, but many times this is at the student's expense. Maybe with a little elbow grease and some sheets that you can't see through, there will come a glorious day when the place is frequented by a higher class of prostitutes who get paid in actual money, instead of drugs.

The location is also terrible and not conducive to academic or social life. There is almost no residential property near the motel, just a grab bag of shabby businesses, with plenty of alleys and back lots for vagrant drunks to pop out of and greet you. (I use the term "greet" loosely, since one of these unfortunate souls took it upon himself to push me off the sidewalk into the side of a moving bus for no reason. Luckily, I was all right.) They have ample oppotunity to "greet" you on your ten block walk to campus. Ten blocks is quite a distance to walk for most of the students at the motel, most of whom are from out of state and did not bring a bike. It takes at least twenty minutes to get anywhere on campus. Obviously, this is very inconvenient.

The motel is located right on Franklin Avenue, which has freeway exits on both ends, ensuring constant traffic. Every night, trucks so large they have their own weather systems drive by. This creates a noise collage of low rumblings, hydraulic pings, and unmuffled engine breaking that, given enough time, will bore its way into your skull. This combined with the resulting sleep depravation, will cause even the most sane of persons to have the urge to go out and buy a gun, clean it repeatedly, and start muttering something about the "time of purification." Lastly, the place is just ugly. Someone tried to improve the place by running a canal behind the motel. Last I looked it was filled with trash and, I swear to God, a dead decomposing duck was floating in it. This struck me as very ironic, given my predicament at The Eugene Motor Lodge.

The location of the motel is something that can't be helped. It would be an easy situation to simply accept since I can't do anything about the location. The real problems of living here are a result of dealing with the motel's management. One would expect them to be reasonable and listen to the students' and Resident Assistant's concerns. The University has used The Eugene Motor Lodge the past few years without many problems, but this year it is under new management. Part of the problem is that the motel is now run by a family whose facility with the English language makes communicating with them difficult, to say the least. I wonder if they even realize that they have done many things that are disrespectful to the students living here.

Ever since I got here, the motel has been undergoing a series of repairs and improvements. This means on the nights I do manage to get some sleep, often I wake very early to the sound of power tools. One morning we were even privy to a jackhammer in the parking lot. Many students have complained about this to management, who smile, apologize, act like they understand us, and then do nothing.

Aside from the noise, the repairs have also interfered with the students' lives in other ways. One morning, they shut off the power in our rooms to do some electrical work. This turned off everyone's clock and no one's alarm went off. The very next morning they turned off the hot water for three hours, so no one could take a shower. Students as well as the Resident Assistants living in the motel complained vigorously about not being told about either of these things in advance.

Incredibly, they did not listen. Two days later, management started replacing everyone's windows. That afternoon my roommate and I were on our beds studying when four construction workers with a master key walked into our room unannounced and started knocking out the large window in the front of our room. It was cold, raining like hell and my roommate and I had nowhere to go.

Later that day, when I complained about this, Tom Hunt, one of the other students in the motel, told me they walked in and started replacing his window when he and his roommate were still in bed. When he told them to come back later, they would not leave until they were done. They simply do not respect the students. The sink in my room got clogged and despite complaining nearly every day, they told me I must have done something wrong and it was not fixed for almost two weeks.

Even the Resident Assistants in the motel are not listened to or respected. One weekend, a large group of students showed up very late Saturday night to visit someone at the motel. Despite the fact the RAs immediately handled the situation in an appropriate manner and dispersed the crowd, this did not stop the manager, Smiley--yes that is his name--from calling the police. The Resident Assistants pleaded frantically to keep this from happening, but to no avail. I could go on with more examples, but if you don't have the picture by now, management is rude and communication with them is impossible.

Even though the residents and Resident Assistants at the motel are still encountering problems on a daily basis, we have all but given up on the management for providing any solutions. The Resident Assistants here at the motel, Jake Geissinger and Shad Alexander, have assured me that they have been sending a strong message to Housing that this is not the place to house students next year. With that knowledge, I have looked into some possible alternatives for next year. Clearly, something has to be done.

Part of the problem is that Housing feels too much pressure to keep the dorms full. University Housing is completely self-sufficient; it relies exclusively on money that it gets directly from the students. Consequently, people who move out of the dorms and break their housing contracts are a substantial source of income for Housing. Rather than trying to encourage housing alternatives and acknowledging that the dorms are full, they actively try and draw people into the dorms, even though it would not be hard to ascertain that certain students are not going to be in the dorms very long. This results in unpleasant situations, like housing students in a motel in order to keep the dorms full when they know some students are likely to move out anyway.

For instance, Housing knows that many students are going to move out of the dorms and into the greek system after rush week. What would be the harm in encouraging those students who are interested in the greek system and going through rush to be housed by the fraternities and sororities from the beginning of the year?

It is difficult to tell what fraternity or sorority life will be like without actually living in the system anyway. Many of these people going through rush will probably move straight into the greek system, regardless of whether they have a housing contract. Those that decide not to pledge could then be placed in temporary housing. Because they had already been housed by the greek system through rush, they would not have to wait in temporary housing as long as other students, before space became available.

Eric Johnston, the Interfraternity Council President, had a number of concerns about the possibility of the greek system helping alleviate the housing shortage. For one, not everyone knows what particular fraternity/sorority they want to join, so it might be awkward sticking people with random chapters. It could also be argued that it is good exposing incoming rushees to dorm life so they are in a better position to judge which lifestyle is right for them. Lastly, he did not want students to feel like they would not have any recourse for housing if they decided to rush.

However, there were several things about this scenario that appealed to him. First, it means that the fraternities and sororities do not have to buy out the housing contracts of those students that decide to pledge, as has been their policy in the past. It also immediately provides the greek system with a large base of students to recruit from, because the students do not have to come to them. The faster the chapters can fill up, the better the financial and social health they will have.

Eric Johnston said that after rush 75 to 100 students took bids to join fraternities, with another 50-100 who have taken bids informally since the summer. Since almost all of the 150 students in temporary housing are male, it is possible that the number of guys moving into fraternities could completely offset the number of people in temporary housing. After rush is done, with this plan, there might be space immediately available for those who decide not to pledge. That way, the University might not have to put anyone in temporary housing.

I'm afraid that if this option was investigated by anyone at Housing, it might make too much sense. If the University is given the choice between making students more comfortable and fulfilling their needs or making money off those of us pining away in a motor lodge so they can wait for students to break their housing contracts, unfortunately, we all know what the end result will be. Perhaps an easier decision for Housing to make would simply be to find another hotel.

Ron Tendick, Director of Business Affairs at University Housing, was accommodating and seemed genuinely interested in my concerns about temporary housing (although I haven't seen anything done to address those concerns). Tendick told me some of the reasons that The Eugene Motor Lodge was chosen. He remarked that it is close to the dining center at the University Inn and the students do not have to cross Franklin to get to campus, which could be potentially dangerous. However, if housing were to move the students to a motel across from campus, it still would not be very far to a dining complex. As for crossing Franklin, this is a concern, but most of us do it everyday to go to Dunkin' Donuts, directly across from The Motor Lodge. We're adults--we know how to look both ways. The main point here is that students could be at another motel closer to campus, without having to deal with the most disturbing hotel management this side of Norman Bates.

But these are just a few suggestions on my part. I'm sure the experience and expertise of the housing department, or hell, even a couple of monkeys on loan from the anthropology department could come up with more alternatives. Future students should not have to deal with these problems. The only possible way this temporary housing arrangement could be convenient is if I decide to use prostitution to work my way through school. Given the rising cost of higher education, this is an increasingly viable option. Besides, I've already proven I'll do anything to get an education... even live at The Eugene Motor Lodge.

Mark Hemingway, a sophomore majoring in Journalism, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator