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Safe and healthy off campus?
Off-campus housing communities have enforced mask-wearing at bus stops and capacity restrictions at other amenities like clubhouses to keep residents safe. Photo illustration by Hannah Wolff / The Breeze
Thursday, October 1, 2020
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Students explain how off-campus living has been impacted by COVID-19 By CHRISTINA BUTCHKO contributing writer
An important aspect of student life impacting nearly 15,000 undergraduates lies in the hands of off-campus living and how they’re adapting to COVID-19. For off-campus housing, students have the option to remain in their leased property, limiting contact with other students besides their roommates. With online classes being the temporary norm, off-campus amenities allow students access to classes when in-person instruction has come to a standstill. Adjusting off campus during COVID-19 for some students is a challenge. The need to travel to campus is reduced, unless students need food, to go to the health center or other resources. The Retreat, Aspen Heights and Fox Hill companies have declined interviews to comment on their COVID19 precautions. Natalie Migliore, a nursing major and resident at The Retreat said that as a sophomor living at The Retreat last year, she didn’t want to move out. “I would rather not be living on campus during the pandemic,” Migliore said. “I’m not forced to be around people like the way we were in the dorms.” Although the living situations in these offcampus locations are different from living in dorms on campus, ensuring student safety must be considered in these off-campus residence areas and apartment buildings, and adjustments because of the coronavirus have impacted how students live off campus. Migliore said the gym
and most amenities in the clubhouse are now reservation-based and have limited hours. Taylor Zampiello, a junior nursing major and resident at Aspen Heights, upsetly said, “Any time you enter the clubhouse, you have to wear a mask. But I feel like since I’m living off campus, I can really keep my space clean.” When picking a place to live, how off-campus locations handle the coronavirus can be a deciding factor, along with the ability of the resident to control the cleanliness of their own space. “The ability to Lysol and wipe down everything and stay in my own room and have my own bathroom made containing myself easier,” Zampiello said. However, the possibility of living off campus and a roommate in the house contracting COVID-19 is concerning. Living with a positivetesting roommate may leave some students in a predicament of what to do next: quarantining, getting tested or going home. When one of Zampiello’s roommates tested positive, she and her three other roommates socially distanced for the period of their roommate’s quarantine, and luckily, no one else got it. Unlike a dorm, most roommates don’t need to share basic amenities like bathrooms. For The Retreat and Aspen Heights, each resident may have their own bathroom, and depending on whether they leased their unit furnished, a desk and chair may be provided. Residents essentially could quarantine themselves in their rooms for as long as they needed.
With online classes, more off-campus residents have the chance to take walks. Hannah Wolff / The Breeze
