A machine released iridescent bubbles into the air, covering the grassy knoll near the childcare center and playground at Family Student Housing (FSH). Children ran to greet their parents after daycare got out at 5:30 p.m., going off to play or ride around on tricycles.
Nearby stood a microphone and two speakers with a banner hanging from each, reading:
“No Rent Hike”
Families, supporters and news reporters surrounded the makeshift stage, settling in to hear speeches at an April 30 press conference and rally. The FSH Tenants Association organized the event to protest the $527 rent hike they will face once they move from the current FSH complex on Koshland Way to a new site on Hagar and Coolidge drives next year.
“We’re here today to place a demand on the university and UC Santa Cruz admin to reconcile their stated mission of supporting academic inquiry and a diverse student body with the actions that they’re taking, including placing students in Family Student Housing under extreme rent burden,” said Alex Stokes, a third-year PhD candidate, FSH resident and mother at the rally.
Stokes described how the rent increase will negatively affect many families, including her own.
“The $35,000 that I make this year before tax for my duties as a TA will outstrip the yearly rent in the new Family Student Housing complex by a total of $5,000,” she said. “This doesn’t include the taxes I pay, the undisclosed increase in childcare costs at the new childcare facility on the east side of campus, nor the expenses which will incur as a result of the birth of our second child in June.”
The FSH Tenants Association made two demands clear: That UCSC houses all student families, with children or not, and that UCSC rescind its rent hike and cap the new FSH rent at the current rate.
Representatives from the Santa Cruz County Renter’s Union and United Auto Workers (UAW) 4811 attended the rally as well, asserting their support for their interconnected issues.
“UAW 4811 unequivocally stands with the Family Student Housing Tenant Association in demanding no rent hikes. Your struggles are our struggles,” said Rebecca Gross, UAW 4811 unit chair, while addressing the crowd. “As it is now, 90 percent of grads at [the] UC are rent burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their wages on rent each month.”
“And now the UC, which claims to be in a budget crisis — while its investment pool grows by billions of dollars each year — is trying to prey on families by raising the rent by nearly $600 a month, putting them into further rent burden,” continued Gross. “This is unacceptable.”
Breaking Down the Budget of the New Complex
Construction of the new FSH complex costs $165 million total: $19 million for the childcare center and $146 million for the 120 units. FSH residents currently pay $1,973 per month to live in the current complex. Next year, that price will rise to $2,500 a month.
According to multiple Colleges, Housing and Educational Services (CHES) administrators, the university considered a number of factors when setting new FSH rates, such as operational costs attributed to COVID-19, challenges in sourcing labor and materials prices.
“The proposed rate increase is necessary to cover rising operational costs, including expenses associated with the cost of the new building, staffing and operating costs,” wrote assistant vice chancellor of communications and marketing Scott Hernandez-Jason via email to City on a Hill Press on behalf of associate vice chancellor for CHES Laura Arroyo and executive director for housing services Dave Keller.
In addition to these hurdles, the project also faced multiple lawsuits seeking to halt its construction, which resulted in a switch from private funding to a loan from the UC Board of Regents. The loan must be repaid over a 30-year period.
According to Steve Houser, director of capital planning, UCSC uses a “syndicated system,” which means that the money students pay to live on campus goes toward paying the debt services back on new projects in some capacity.
For every $100 UCSC students pay for campus housing, $28.28 goes toward loan repayment. This means the $527 rent increase per month per unit within the syndicated system at FSH translates to more money going towards the loan repayment.
In their demands, the Tenants Association objected to residents bearing the burden of the loan repayment in the form of a rent increase and offered an alternative. The demands were read aloud by tenant LuLing Osofsky, within which the rent increase is rounded up to $600. This amounts to an extra $7,200 residents would be paying over the course of the year.
“The new rent rate represents [an] up to $7,200 increase per year per family, or $864,000 in increases for the 120 units. The regents approved a new salary for UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive of $795,000, and executive vice chancellor Lori Kletzer made [around] $504,000 in pay and benefits in 2023,” she said. “Thus, if Larive and Kletzer each had their salaries capped at $200,000, the money saved would more than pay for the $864,000 rent increase.”
When asked how he felt about the Tenants Association’s demands to cancel the rent increase, Houser responded:
“I’ll just say that the debt has to be paid … Somebody else has to pay for it if they’re not paying it.”
A resident places a flyer resisting the rent hike in their child’s stroller.
FSH Residents Attend Open House, Concerns Remain
FSH residents display the NO RENT HIKE message in hopes to keep housing affordable for student families.
After repeated requests from the Tenants Association, Houser and other CHES staff held an “open house” on April 22, the week prior to the rally. FSH residents were able to review the unit floor plan, site layout and renderings of the childcare center for the first time.
According to multiple people who were at the event, the new, one-story units will not have the same amount of storage, nor the balconies, that residents appreciate in their current units but will include in-unit laundry and a dishwasher. Buildings will be oriented in two loops around centralized play areas for children.
“It’s nice to have a play yard that I can send my kid out in … and you can watch them from your window,” FSH resident Andrew said.
FSH resident Diana Hernandez noted that the new childcare center design seems to be “more intentional” as well, and bigger — there’s even a water play area. But for her, these changes don’t matter because of the rent increase.
“It’s interesting to have these discussions about the material aspects of Family Student Housing, but it’s hard to focus on when I’m worried about my friends and neighbors if they can’t even pay to live there,” Hernandez said. “It’s not as exciting as I think it was meant to be.”
The FSH Tenants Association is also concerned about UCSC’s policy of prioritizing FSH housing for students with dependents. Although this is not a new policy — and all residents with long-term leases have been guaranteed a spot at the new complex — the new complex will have 76 units less than the current one.
With fewer units, the kinds of families offered a spot off of the waitlist might change. According to Alex Stokes, this would be “effectively redefining what family is in the eyes of UC Santa Cruz,” because there may be less room for other types of families, like unmarried couples, siblings or students who care for parents.
“It’s going to affect people’s ability to stay in Santa Cruz because of this kind of strict imagining of what a family is instead of what it could be,” FSH resident Andrew said.
Demands Moving Forward
FSH residents held the rally next to the childcare center, making it easier for families to pick up their children and watch them during the rally; it was also intentionally adjacent to the FSH Office. 
Graduate student and UAW 4811 organizer Nate Edenhofer, a FSH resident, speaks to the crowd of families, students and supporters, encouraging them to remain strong, urging them to spread the word.
LuLing Osofsky finished reading the Tenants Association’s demands, stating that they expect a response from Chancellor Cynthia Larive by May 13. Osofsky delivered the demands to the FSH Office around 5:45 p.m.
City on a Hill Press reached out to Chancellor Larive for a comment, asking whether she would be responding to the demand to rescind the rent hike and, if so, how. We did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Earlier in the rally, during her speech, Alex Stokes stated that they reached out to Chancellor Larive for a conversation after not receiving responses to their concerns from upper administration at FSH. She said they have yet to hear back from her, but that FSH residents are not giving up.
“In response to Larive’s silence, we’d like to remind her that together we’re strong, and here we’re just starting,” Stokes said.
