University of Kansas - Jayhawker Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

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30 THE JAYHAWKER When construction is completed, three new emer- gency housing projects will accommodate another 310 single men and married faculty members. Under the east side of the stadium McCook Hall will house 64 men by November 1 in two dormitory rooms. Sunny- side addition, consisting of 186 four-room apart- ment s in 31 barracks type buildings, will house both married faculty members and students and single men by the start of the Spring semester. An H -shaped dormitory west of the stadium will house 160 men in single rooms by the end of November. Complete with maple floors and plywood walls, but without marble columns, this unit is the personal pride of Housing Director Youngberg. K. U. students, along with nearly everyone else, aren ' t writing any sonnets about their housing, but 9,000 of them have descended on Lawrence and vicinity and have found places to live. The Jay- hawker ' s present post-war home may resemble an army barracks or the hall closet back home, may be miles from the campus or may rent in the stratos- phere, but he can console himself with the thought Three makes a crowd when its study time at the Louis Kissinger abode in Sunflower village. that the situation won ' t get much worse and will probably get better. Students still unhappy about the situation and future prospects can always exercise that one of the four freedoms which permits griping. They can write their Congressmen; they can carry their troubles to the Housing Director; they can complain to the OPA; or in last resort, they can look up their old chaplain, and he ' ll probably hear their story and respond with words of comfort. That post-war dream house, or even a pre-war one, is still just a dream; and the competition from bowling allies, store fronts, war memorials and other non-housing construction is hard to beat. A complicating factor in the housing situation is the probability that without rent control many apart- ment and room rents would climb out of the reach of the average student. During the short lapse of price controls few rent increases occurred, but this lack of increases resulted mainly from the certainty that at least rent controls would be restored. The K.U. Chapter of the American Veterans Committee conducted a survey of climbing rents and attempted evictions during the OPA recess. This survey revealed scattered raises and threatened raises averaging 20% plus several cases of attempted evictions. If the pres- ent trend toward the lifting of price controls leads to the end of rent ceilings, students living in private rooms or apartments will face the costly prospect of bidding against each other for Lawrence ' s crowded facilities. Even with ceilings in effect, landlords have ap- plied American ingenuity to find more or less direct methods of ignoring them. Extra charges may be made for the furniture, use of electrical appliances, or other such extras. The landlord may require a deposit on the room, later to be forgotten, or may specify that the student ' s wife do a certain amount of housework to supplement the rent paid under the ceiling. In other cases the matter of ceilings has been completely avoided by failure to list rooms or apartments with the rent control office. These law violations can occur only with the co- operation of the student renter, although any intima-