OCC to protect, educate off-campus students

Boston University’s Off-Campus Council is focusing on increasing awareness about tenant rights as the new semester begins, its officials said.

“Our goals involve community building, neighborhood relations and safety,” said Alisha Tubis, president of OCC. “As off-campus students, we are more than part of the BU community. We are part of Cambridge, Allston, Kenmore, Brighton and even Boston as a whole.”

The council, which will hold its first official meeting of the semester on Wednesday, also hopes to hold a field day with Greek Life on Nickerson Field in the spring.

“We are trying to get a lawyer for a tenant rights safety seminar scheduled,” Tubis, a senior in Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said. “The idea is that we bring in a lawyer from the area and basically we hold a lecture or discussion of the basic tenant rights and living in Boston.”

The groups primary concern is safety for off-campus students, she said.

“We’re looking forward to working a lot with the school and local law enforcement in order to keep us smart, healthy and out of harm’s way,” Tubis said.

Katie Noel, a SAR senior and OCC secretary, said OCC taught her how to handle a landlord trying to pin a problem on her that was out of her control.

“One thing that I learned is to take pictures of your apartment before and after you leave,” Noel said.

Noel said she found a lot of students are unaware of their rights.

“A lot of landlords or realtors will take advantage of students because they are young,” she said.

Stephanie Carlo, a SAR senior, said she has never heard of the OCC but did notice problems with living off-campus.

“[Landlords] definitely take advantage of students,” she said. “In my last apartment, they didn’t care about anything we said, they didn’t care to clean, because we were students. I got my mom to fight for me and she got them to take us seriously.”

Pamela Chen, a senior in the School of Hospitality Administration and the OCC vice president of events, said she joined the organization to avoid falling through the cracks at BU.

“I didn’t go to the GSU [George Sherman Union] once my junior year because I didn’t have to,” Chen said. “I felt that because I’m in SHA, I was really confined to that area.”

Students move off campus to avoid fines, strict resident assistants and to save money, said Colin Wolfgang, a Class of 2012 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences and former vice president of the OCC.

“I felt like I didn’t have that many resources,” Wolfgang said. “I feel like a lot of landlords tend to take advantage of the students in this area.”

Wolfgang felt he saved money by living off-campus and enjoyed the independence.

“I didn’t agree with the system of fines [for getting violations in the dorms],” he said. “Charging money was excessive.”

Wolfgang said he thought moving off-campus would give him more responsibility and would prepare him better for living in the real world. Now, as a graduate, he said he is glad that he did.

“It really helped me transition to post-collegiate lifestyle,” he said.

Chen said OCC worked hard to recruit new members over the summer, but still expects to see only 15 people at the meeting on Wednesday. She said they all try to bring friends to increase their membership.

Casey Rabin, a COM senior who lives off-campus in Brookline, said that while she has had good experiences in BU housing, she likes the freedom of living on her own.

“I am close to everything, but I have my own kitchen, and I don’t pay as much,” she said. “I live with who I want to live with, and there’s no rules to abide by.”

Rabin said she didn’t know the OCC but still felt safe living off-campus.

“[Dangerous situations] could happen whether you’re on campus or off campus. I still do feel very, very safe because I see police around all the time,” she said. “I think it’s mainly location-wise, just because it is in a great area and I am still close to BU and there are definitely safety measures that I’ve taken, so I’m not too concerned.”