In defense of People’s Park
Emily Bi/Senior Staff
Last Updated February 2, 2021
While more student housing is necessary, the
kind of housing is as important as
where it will be built. What students need is affordable housing, and the proposed housing projects won’t alleviate student needs if their room and board costs fall within the $18,000 to $20,000 a year range of existing student housing. In comparison, room and board in the Berkeley Student Cooperative is about $7,000 a year. If housing is to be built, it must be economically and socially equitable.
The UC Berkeley Housing Task Force 2017 Student Housing Survey proposed 10 different sites and includes a survey of the priorities of undergraduates, graduate and postdoctoral students. People’s Park ranks fifth for undergraduates, seventh for graduate students and eighth for postdoctorals. PeoplesPark.org also features maps of alternative housing development sites and sketches of possible housing projects. Besides the