Women and Housing Issues
MADISON, Wisc., April 17— Women living on campus have to consider safety when house-hunting.
By: Dani Nisbet
Amanda Comins is a freshman studying Elementary Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She currently lives in the dorm Witte with a friend from high school. Yet with her first year coming to a close, she’s had to consider housing arrangements for next year. College students generally have to begin looking for next-year’s housing from early October through the month of November.
Comins was able to find a house with several other people, which will help her split the rent. Nevertheless, being a 19 year old woman living away from home, has made Commins consider her safety when finding housing.
Women are most commonly the victims of sexual violence, and are oftentimes younger in age. Female university students are reported to be more aware of their surroundings, even in comparison to women living in urban areas.
“I was looking to be close to campus so I wouldn’t have to walk far at night or after getting off the bus, just for safety purposes as well,” Comins said.
UW-Madison has safety services such as SAFEwalk, which allows students to be escorted home if they feel unsafe or live far away. However, SAFEwalk is not foolproof. Although, it works on the main campus, and other near campus locations. It does not run to the far-west side locations, which are isolated areas to walk through. Furthermore, SAFEwalk only runs for five hours, 8 p.m.- 1 a.m.
Comins went on to say that living close to friends, and having short commutes from their place to her’s makes her feel safe.
“You just wanna make sure wherever you’re living you feel comfortable, like kind of being out on your own and you’re not really worried that, you know, someone or something is gonna get you,” Comins said.
The app Open House, which allows users to house-hunt in a dating-app style, takes all of these concerns into account. Users can filter for houses based on their price, location and utilities. People can also post apartments, houses or rooms they want to sublease. After finding a home they like, users can contact the landlord and go from there.
Comins believes that an app like Open House could do a lot of good for students, especially with its unique roommate-matching feature. The app would allow people to filter for roommates based on age, gender and interests. From there, users can decide whether they want to swipe right to match with them, or swipe left and look for other options
Comins said, “I know like people do Instagram dating or you add people randomly off Snapchat or Instagram, and I feel like if you had an app where people are actively searching, it would probably make the process a lot quicker. And it’s in that dating format set up.”
Sources:
Amanda Comins, Elementary Education Student at UW-Madison, (608) 504-8999
Klodawsky, F., & Lundy, C. (1994). WOMEN’S SAFETY IN THE UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 11(2), 128–136. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43029116
SAFEwalk. (n.d.). Transportation Services. https://transportation.wisc.edu/commuter-solutions/safewalk/#:~:text=SAFEwalkers%20can%20accompany%20you%20throughout,%2C%20staff%2C%20and%20UW%20visitors.
Singh, S., Mudaly, R., & Singh-Pillay, A. (2015). The “what, who and where” of female students’ fear of sexual assault on a South African University campus. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 29(3 (105)), 97–105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43826503
Sunby, L. (2024, December 5). SAFEwalk hasn’t helped women feel any safer, just uncomfortable. SAFEwalk Hasn’t Helped Women Feel Any Safer, Just Uncomfortable – the Daily Cardinal. https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2024/12/safewalk-hasnt-helped-women-feel-any-safer-just-uncomfortable