By Debora Almeida, News Correspondent
The mayoral race may bring some surprising consequences for students. Raleigh Werner, cofounder of Jumpshell, explained the mayoral candidates’ positions on student housing in an eBook titled “The Future of Student Housing in Boston: How the 2013 Mayoral Election will Affect Student Housing,” released this week.
Werner and a friend started Jumpshell as an effort to help renters avoid broker’s fees, which are usually equal to about one month’s rent. Jumpshell allows its users to connect with people on their own social networks to find an apartment to rent. Through this process, renters can avoid the middleman and the increasing fees that come with a broker. Werner said that this can help students looking to save money, since current cost of room and board is already expensive.
Werner created the eBook to bring attention to student housing in light of the election, which he felt was not being fully addressed.
“Housing as an issue can’t be in a vacuum,” Werner said as advice to the next mayor. “That’s leaving out students which are a large portion of the population.”
The issue is the massive influx of students into the Boston rental market, which leads to Bostonians looking for cheap housing being pushed out of the market. This also increases the demand of housing, and, consequentially, the prices. In addition, the demand for on-campus housing for Northeastern has increased recently, but construction for more on-campus housing mentioned in the Institutional Master Plan has been stalled.
Werner determined that both Martin J. Walsh and John Connolly support building more on-campus housing. Both of their positions are in line with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Housing Boston 2020 plan, which calls for a growth in on-campus student housing. In addition, Connolly added a focus on addressing the housing needs of graduate students. However, Werner said he believes implementation will not be as easy as the candidates are making it seem.
Werner said he believes it makes sense for universities to build more housing, simply because they have the ability to build easily. He also suggested that colleges could join together to build combined housing. However, Werner acknowledges that there are different reasons why students move off-campus, ranging from a lifestyle choice to the more common cost- saving measures like moving off-campus with roommates.
To further look into the issue, Werner said he hopes to get feedback from students across Boston on the reasons they move off-campus. He anticipated that his eBook will bring awareness to students and hopefully peak their interest in the mayoral race.
“I remember being in college and it’s easy to get stuck in the college bubble,” said Werner, adding that the student housing issue is a link between the campus and the politics of the city.
