Students will now have a new resource to find reliable off campus housing with the newly created housing network. Credit: Zachary Rilley | Photo Editor
The challenge of finding safe and reliable off-campus housing can seem daunting for students new to renting, but the Ohio State Off-Campus Housing Network seeks to ease the experience by connecting students with property owners committed to meeting standards.
According to an Oct. 24 Ohio State news release, the Off-Campus Housing Network is a collaboration between the Office of Student Life, Student Legal Services, landlords and many City of Columbus departments — such as fire, police and public safety.
University spokesperson Dave Isaacs said property owners who meet certain quality standards will be considered “in-network,” allowing them to appear on the off-campus housing search website.
“It can be terribly confusing,” Isaacs said. “There’s so many things to consider, and part of that is helping students learn how to make important decisions.”
Rochelle Toth, community engagement and outreach manager for Off-Campus and Community Student Engagement, said most of the criteria landlords must meet concerns student safety and program involvement.
“Property owners within the program are committed to meeting those criteria,” Toth said. “And so some of those are, you know, meeting the City of Columbus’ housing code, providing exterior light on the front and rear entrance of their properties, making sure there are carbon monoxide detectors and then also engaging with our staff.”
Toth said the off-campus resource center collaborates with City of Columbus Code Enforcement officers to perform safety inspections for property owners within the network. Students can report issues with in-network properties they feel are not meeting the required criteria, according to the center’s website.
Isaacs said it is important to help students due to their inexperience with finding and leasing housing.
“Moving into an apartment is a major step in, particularly, a student’s life,” Isaacs said. “Many students have not faced all the challenges that go with finding their own place, making those arrangements and then moving in.”
Toth said there are about 10,000 units represented by several rental companies within the program.
Michael Wilkos, senior vice president of community impact for United Way of Central Ohio, said the lack of long-term renting from students has historically created a mutual culture with landlords where quality is not always emphasized.
“The University District has always been a neighborhood where you have high demand with inexperienced renters, very high turnover, not a sense of longevity,” Wilkos said. “When people know they’re not going to stay, they behave differently.”
Claire Schutte, a second-year in speech and hearing science who had to find off-campus housing for the first time this semester, said the process of speaking with real estate companies and agents was difficult as a “young” student.
“Being inexperienced was probably the biggest challenge because, like, they would talk about things — I don’t even know what they were saying,” Schutte said.
Schutte said the housing network would have been helpful in her search for an apartment because safety criteria, such as carbon monoxide alarms and meeting healthy housing codes, are often overlooked by students.
“I feel like we would have used it for sure just because we kind of felt, like, very clueless at the beginning,” Schutte said. “I think it would be nice to have, like, companies that are presented to you and, like, you know for sure that you can trust them with, like, where you’re going to live.”
Toth said landlords are incentivized to meet the program’s criteria because in-network property owners receive benefits — such as marketing opportunities, meetings with stakeholders and access to other events and information.
“Those are opportunities for all of us to come together collectively to address concerns happening in the off-campus area,” Toth said.
Wilkos said he’s glad to see the university take an active role in connecting students to reliable property owners and excluding landlords who “don’t live up to their end of the bargain.”
“If the university continues to be a strong connector between the landlords and students, it’ll be a better neighborhood,” Wilkos said. “Students will have a better experience, and landlords will probably see better treatment of their units.”
