Student housing expectations clash in Champaign
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Allie Howry was craving the rich college experience friends were having and thought she had found the right place to get it in Champaign.
The 20-year-old Parkland College student is carrying a full academic load this semester while working 30 hours a week at a job she loves.
“I'm from Clinton. Our nights consist of driving around in a car with people you know. I just really wanted the experience of meeting new people, being around new things,” she said.
While registering at Parkland, Howry asked people around her where they thought was a good place to live. After checking their suggestions online and in person with her parents, she signed a lease at University Village, a north Champaign apartment complex on Moreland Boulevard west of Market Place Mall that caters to college-age students.
The 240-unit complex was known as 88 West from the time it opened in summer 2006 until just a couple of months ago.
With amenities such as roommate matching, affordable apartments with individual bedrooms and bathrooms, a clubhouse, gym, study room, and the chance to have her dog live with her, Howry was hooked.
“My leasing agent did an awesome job. I asked her many times, `Am I going to have fun here, fit in here? Is this a busy place?' I wanted that experience,” she said.
She moved in in late August, placed with three women from the Chicago area she didn't know and with whom she had little in common, despite having filled out a lengthy questionnaire on interests for the purpose of finding compatible roommates.
After a month there — she moved to a second apartment after a week with the first roommates — Howry got exposed to some life experiences that sent her packing back home to Clinton and trying to get out of her lease.
Among the things she witnessed: people blocking stairwells while smoking cannabis, drinking alcohol and refusing to move; people sitting on her car; a woman bashing a man's head with a lamp; a brawl among 30 or more in the parking lot; and being the subject of sexually suggestive remarks from men she didn't know who followed her to her car and her apartment door.
On at least two occasions, she called Champaign police about larger fights after getting no response from guards who provide security for the nine buildings in the complex.
Howry's roommate, Jenny Gadbury, 20, originally from Mahomet, also moved in in late August and was equally excited about the place, especially getting to have her dog with her. Gadbury is a full-time Parkland student who works about 30 hours a week at a downtown Champaign restaurant and bar.
Like Howry, she saw groups hanging out in the parking lot, heard loud music coming from cars and witnessed fights. She was willing to tolerate most of that — but when she learned shots were fired at a man early on the morning of Sept. 11, that clinched her decision to move out.
“I talked to a police officer ... who said, `If you were my daughter, you would be out of here,”' she recounted. “I come home at night (after closing the bar), and I don't want to be in the middle of that.”
Howry, Gadbury and their mothers met with property manager Mitch Kesler on Sept. 21 to talk about the perceived problems and were told they could not be let out of their leases simply because they didn't feel safe.
“The management said everything in Champaign is like this. That's upsetting to me (that I didn't get that college experience). I'm 20 years old. Parkland was the best option because I get to keep a good job. Now where do I go to do this?” Howry said. “I understand there are going to be incidents, but these are dangerous.
“This is not a bunch of kids getting drunk and being loud. It's scary things.”
Gadbury added that she's willing to risk a bad credit rating to get out of her lease.
“My safety is more important,” she said.
Records from the Champaign police department show there were 377 calls for service to 88 West in 2010, an average of just over one a day.
Less serious calls ranged from one for underage drinking to a high of 54 for loud music. The more serious included five for shots heard, two for armed people, two sexual assaults, one for home invasion, 17 for burglary, 17 for fighting, and 19 for theft.
In 2007, calls totaled 243; in 2008, there were 382; and in 2009, there were 276.
As of Sept. 13, the number of calls were apace with last year's. There had been 289, including one shooting, one stabbing, three armed subjects, and three shots heard. The number of burglaries — 25 — had already exceeded the number for all of 2010.
And on Sept. 22, police received a home invasion report in which three people said they were robbed by two men they didn't know about 12:20 a.m. No one was injured.
Champaign police Lt. Jon Swenson, who commands patrol officers in the city's north and northwest districts, said the calls may be higher than average, but it's because the people living there are college freshmen and sophomores, the vast majority of whom attend Parkland College.
“These are kids who are out of the house for the first time, not under the control of mom and dad and not subject to the rules,” he said. “Over the last few years, when we've seen what you or I would classify as serious crimes, it's not being committed by someone who is a resident there.
“Underage drinking, loud music, disorderly behavior, you have to expect a certain amount of that at a complex occupied by college-age kids. That's not going to be significantly different than any other complex.”
As for the burglaries, Swenson said there are two things at play. One is that the apartments are furnished with flat-screen televisions attractive to thieves, and the other is that the apartments are frequently left unlocked.
“Those are not really three- and four-bedroom apartments. They are apartments with three or four bedrooms to rent,” he said, noting that people who are strangers are often put in the same units. Each person has his own bedroom that locks. The television is in the living room.
“You have three or four kids sharing an apartment who are all on different schedules and they wind up leaving doors unlocked. There are females who leave the door open for another female so they're not fumbling for a key at 2 a.m.,” he said.
“Obviously a shots fired or armed subjects is a serious call of significant concern to us. We're not going to treat it any differently in terms of response than if it were at Countrybrook or Dorsey Homes.”
But Swenson points out that even at one call a day, only a small percentage of the complex's total crimes are serious.
“I know that doesn't make Mom feel any better. There's not an acceptable number of times when shots can be fired,” he said.
Most of the calls for service are between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Thursday through Saturday nights and Sunday morning.
The complex has its own security officers, but they are not present around the clock.
Kesler lives in the complex and has managed it since August 2009.
There are private security guards on the property every day after the main office closes, he said. That's at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Their presence is heavier on the weekends.
“I've been in this business 12 years, and I have managed three other properties in town,” Kesler said. “The same things go on at other places. It's unfortunate. We have probably done more than others to help rectify the situation.”
The complex installed security gates about a year ago. Tenants insert an access card to get through the gate. Guests can call the resident's cellphone from a box at the gate. The resident has to dial a code to let the guest in the gate.
Criminal background checks and credit checks are done on prospective tenants. The management has a no-tolerance policy, meaning that any resident caught engaging in criminal activity can be evicted, Kesler said.
He said the crimes happening at University Village are not random.
“They happen because people are hanging around with people they shouldn't be hanging around,” Kesler said. “Nobody has been physically shot. If there was a sex assault, I don't know about it. It's not easy to obtain police reports.
“The issue really is, more than anything, society. A lot of kids don't have a lot of respect for much of anything. They're young kids coming from larger cities,” he said, estimating that 75 percent of the tenants attend Parkland College.
He conceded that tenants sometimes like to gather in parking lots to socialize and that the loudness and drinking are partially due to their immaturity.
“There's a difference between loitering and sitting on the steps. They are all friends. We try to get them to go down by the pool or the common areas,” he said.
Howry said there are signs posted at several places on the property that say loiterers can be ticketed, but Swenson said police can't do much unless the person is doing something blatantly illegal.
“We don't write loitering tickets,” he said, adding that only the management has the authority to ban someone from the property.
Kesler said even if there were security 24 hours a day, things would still happen.
“When somebody fired a gun three weeks ago, I had more complaints from tenants about security being tougher on them than I did about somebody shooting the gun,” he said. “As far as residents go, very rarely is there a resident that has an issue because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Typically, when they have issues, there's a reason something happened like people hanging out with people they don't know, advertising a party on Facebook then having items stolen.
“Pay attention to your surroundings. Make sure you know who's in your home. Lock the doors,” Kesler said, sounding like a crime prevention officer.