[Published in the Chronicle of Higher Education]

Until recently, I lived in an abandoned church.

Inside, when afternoon sun poured through the windows, a beautiful hardwood
floor glowed orange like a bed of embers raked flat. Looking at it from
across the street, you could see a large multicolored stained-glass window
high above the doorway. Looking up even higher, you could see where a
steeple once stood. The building was abandoned 76 years ago in favor of a
new, larger church, and soon thereafter was converted into student housing.
Someone subdivided it into six apartments by adding a second floor,
installing a few bathrooms and building some inadequate closets. Until
recently, it was home to 15 Dartmouth students, myself included. Of all the
places I lived during my time at Dartmouth, it was my favorite. This place
felt like home.

I do not mean to imply that this place is perfect; it is far, far from it.
There are holes in the walls and holes in the ceiling. Because of the
building’s dilapidated condition, people refer to it affectionately as the
Crackhouse. (Most off-campus houses have nicknames; there’s the Pork Pit,
Happy Home, Tool Shed, Hammer Hut and Love Shack, among others.) Rumor has
it, though, that the Crackhouse got its name because one student, whose
parents were disgusted with the condition of his apartment, comforted them
with, “No! We don’t sell crack here!”) While I lived there, we had our own
skunk, the heating system was erratic and the building’s foundation was
crumbling. The Crackhouse (most of it, at least) really is a dump.

When I moved in, I spent the entire first week fixing up my new apartment. I
ripped up and threw away the musty carpets, belt-sanded the floor, painted
the walls and — acting on a strong impulse to actually use the machete I
bought in Zimbabwe — took down a wall. Basically, I made drastic changes,
and a big mess. When the property manager walked in while the mess was at
its peak and saw what I had done, she was understandably upset. Eventually,
though, I managed to calm her, and convince her that I knew what I was
doing, thereby narrowly evading eviction. I polished the floor, patched up
the edges of the wall I demolished, and cleaned everything else up. My
apartment became the nicest one in the Crackhouse.

Unfortunately, it is likely no one else will have a chance to live there.
Dartmouth College has announced plans to purchase 19 different off-campus
houses and apartments, including the Crackhouse. The college’s plans are
both uncertain and vague, but one of its goals is clear: to minimize
off-campus student housing. The idea is mentioned a couple of times in the
trustees’ recently published Student Life Initiative. Rumor has it that the
Crackhouse will be among the first buildings to be torn down.

I hate to imagine the Crackhouse gone forever, but even more I hate to
imagine all those poor future students stuck living in dorms. Off-campus
student housing options are vital. Students like me need freedom and
independence, the opportunity to live a real life of their own.

I moved off campus as soon as I could, because by the end of freshman year I
knew that dorm life was not for me. Dorms frightened me. They made me feel
at various times like an inmate in jail, a guest at a hotel or a rat in a
lab. That didn’t seem right. I remember feeling confined, restricted,
assimilated. More than anything, I felt controlled, as though someone was
babysitting me.

So I moved off-campus, in search of a place that felt less like a cube and
more like a home. What I craved was a definite sense of place, the very
thing that is so lacking in dorms. There, you get a desk, a chair, a
mattress, a closet — and a key, of course, so you can lock it all up.
Off-campus housing offers much more. It offers independence, responsibility
and room for genuine effort. Part of the reason I was so fond of my
apartment at the Crackhouse was because I had something invested in it:
work, thought, vision. I shaped it, I periodically cleaned it and maintained
it. I was connected to my home.

Another example: Two friends of mine, both seniors, live in a cabin in
Thetford. They have no electricity — no CD player, no microwave oven, no
computers, no e-mail! Every morning during the heating season, before they
drove to campus, they stoked the woodstove — their only source of heat — so
that their home would be warm when they returned. On special occasions, they
listened to a crank-powered radio. They pay less rent than I did (and I paid
less rent than most), but that’s not why they chose to live there. They
enjoy the solitude, the simplicity, the style of life they have created.
They have a unique place of their own, and a bond tying them to the ground.
That’s what place means. That’s what dorms cannot offer.

That’s why the Student Life Initiative scares me. Off-campus housing is
important at an institution like Dartmouth; if anything, we need more of it.
The trustees may have some promising ideas (that’s a whole different story),
but their recommendation to reduce off-campus housing is not one of them.
Currently, 15 percent of Dartmouth undergraduates live off-campus. The
Student Life Initiative aims to reduce that figure to 10 percent.

That goal, though, is not only undesirable, it might be unfeasible. The
Student Life Initiative calls for Dartmouth to provide new apartments and
other forms of student housing, but it’s not clear that the college will do
so quickly enough to accommodate those who need living spaces. A new 80-bed
dormitory is supposed to be ready in the East Wheelock cluster by fall, but
college officials say they still won’t have enough beds. Until the college
is able to guarantee housing for all students, off-campus housing remains
essential at Dartmouth — both for students who crave it, and for students
who need it.

One last thing: Off-campus housing is much less expensive than dorm housing
(even in pricey Hanover). My freshman year I paid $1,200 per term, or $400 a
month, to live in 311 Topliff. At the Crackhouse, I paid $325 a month. Add
my electric and phone bills, and I paid about $350. Considering that I had
three times the living space, a stove, a sink, a refrigerator, a shower and
a beautiful hardwood floor, I think it’s more than worth it. Plus, I lived
in one of the more expensive off-campus houses. Rent for my two friends in
Thetford is half what I paid.

Don’t tell me you’d rather live in a sterile, fluorescently lit cubicle when
you could live in a cozy wooden cabin for half the price. I just don’t buy it.