On Wednesday at Rose Café, Lisa Nicholas came to speak about housing and infrastructure in Ithaca. What struck me the most was the percentage of Ithaca employees that commute-over 80%. This is most likely due to the very expensive housing options available in Ithaca, as well as the shortage of housing options available. While permeant housing is the real issue, the city of Ithaca seems to only be working on hotel developments. While the new hotels will bring more visitors to Ithaca, it will not help the people of Ithaca dramatically, as there is still only a 0.5% vacancy rate. The people of Ithaca, including the students, need new affordable housing options; however the plans to build a new apartment building were rejected and hotels are being built instead.

Personally, I have seen the issues with student housing in Ithaca. My friends and I spent countless hours trying to find affordable housing in a decent location. This process took up countless hours of our time. We finally found one of the cheapest options in Collegetown, but it still had a high price tag per month, plus utilities and other fees. The apartment is old and has no natural lighting, with six bedrooms and one bathroom. I have friends at other colleges who rent new 4 bedroom apartments with two bathrooms for almost half the price of this Ithaca apartment, which was the cheapest option available. Because of the high demand for student housing, realtors can charge insane prices for average apartments. The rents charged in Ithaca are very close to the rents charged in New York City, which seems extremely unreasonable. Something needs to be done to fix the rent issue, as students and Ithaca citizens are all suffering.