As of this spring semester, Saint Xavier is no longer offering the apartments at the Parkside Village as an off-campus housing option.
The Parkside apartments, more commonly known as the Lawndale apartments, were previously contracted as a form of student housing by the university. However, the contract was recently terminated due to safety concerns.
According to reports beginning as early as September of last year, the first floor businesses at Parkside Village had experienced “recurring acts of vandalism”. After careful consideration by Residence Life, Student Affairs, and President Wiseman, the decision was made to relocate the students being housed above these businesses.
The SXU students residing in these apartments were first notified of the university’s decision in early January by John Pelrine, Vice President for Student Affairs. Students were first contacted by email, and later, by phone.
“We are out of Parkside because of concerns of safety for students,” stated Pelrine.
“It was not an easy decision, but it was a necessary one. We knew what we had to do.”
In an interview, Pelrine explained that 17 windows belonging to Parkside Village businesses were reported to have been hit with some sort of “BB” or pellet gun. 16 of the 17 windows were on the first floor.
The most recent of these incidents was reported to have occurred on Christmas.
In terms of alternative housing, students were given a list of various campus housing units available, both on-campus and off-campus. Availabilities included Pulaski, Komensky, and Riviera apartments, Kedzie condos, and dorms in McCarthy, O’Brien, Morris, and Rubloff.
Although housing was made available to the students being relocated, most of those options only offered space for one or two students, leaving groups of three or more to consider splitting up.
Students were asked to select and rank three choices, listing roommate requests with their response.
They were then re-housed in order of the lottery numbers selected last spring.
Although students were contacted on Friday, Jan. 4th about re-housing options, they were expected to have made their decisions by 8:00 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 8th to allow for their relocation in a timely matter.
Students were also informed that the SXU Facilities Staff would be available to assist with the transfer of belongings, but although they would try to accommodate these students’ schedules, their assistance would be most readily available on Jan. 9 and 10.
To ease their transition into new housing, the university did not require these students moving into an on-campus housing accommodation to increase their meal plans (previously “Bronze”) to the
“Silver” meal plans, the minimum plan usually required for students living in Quad Halls. Furthermore, students that needed resident parking were not charged for permits for the spring semester.
According to Pelrine, even with such short notice, the process has gone smoothly, and that the university stands by their decision.
“We are confident it is the correct decisions to take reasonable and possible steps to maintain the safety of our students,” he said.