In light of San Diego State’s announcement that plans to resume in-person classes for fall 2021, the housing administration has some updates as well.
Executive Director of the Office of Housing Administration, Cynthia Cervantes said SDSU plans to reopen all of the traditional residence halls including Maya and Olmeca, Chapultepec, Tenochca, Zura, and Huaxtepec which were closed this year due to COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.
The sophomore housing lottery process closed on March 31, however, students can still fill out a license agreement and apply for housing through their housing portal.
“For folks who kind of missed that cycle or are interested in submitting their license agreement later, they can still go through the process but there is not a lottery component to it,” Cervantes said. “So they tell us what they are interested in, they are still able to perhaps find a roommate match, and then housing will complete the assignment on their behalf.”
Although the housing administration cannot guarantee housing for everyone, Cervantes said they anticipate being able to accommodate everyone on the interest list.
When students return to campus in the fall face masks will continue to be required and the housing guidelines will continue to align with the most recent state and county health and safety guidelines according to Cervantes.
Move-in will run similarly to the move-in days in fall 2019 according to Cervantes. The amount of allowed guests and designated helpers has not yet been determined however, Executive Director of Residential Education, Kara Bauer said those guidelines will be determined as move-in day approaches.
“We will probably align closer to what fall 2019 will look like as far as the number of days. But it still will be spread out over more than one day,” Cervantes said.
First-year political science major Saskia Lehmann said she lived in on-campus housing this year and plans to do so again next year.
“The experience with the sophomore housing lottery was kind of easy for me because I got lucky with the lottery date,” Lehmann said. “But a lot of my friends ended up in VA (Villa Alvarado) and they don’t have cars so they can’t get anywhere.”
Lehmann also said she was unaware the room she picked in the Sophomore Housing Lottery is in an apartment assigned to a Community Assistant (CA). So far she has no information about who the CA might be and she did not originally realize the apartment would be reserved for one.
Despite the delays in course information and registration days, Cervantes said housing
information should be released right on schedule. In early July first-year students will receive confirmation of their housing and in August they will receive their roommate confirmation.
Students will be placed in primarily double occupancy rooms however, triple and quadruple rooms will be available upon request.
“You know thinking back about fall I think the important component here is going to be safety and compliance,” Cervantes said. “That is going to be key for fall. Just because we have the vaccine and it is available doesn’t mean we will lessen our health and safety requirements that we have within our community.”
