Students and parents will soon have a better way to obtain information about student housing options on or off the campus of Prairie View A&M University, possibly as soon as this fall, according to Prairie View Mayor Frank Jackson.
Though the university distributes a list of housing options to students, the city of Prairie View plans to provide a more detailed list of how much every apartment costs and what type of quality they provide renters based on the testimonies of past renters. The listings would be distributed to interested parties at Prairie View City Hall and a non-biased on-campus office.
“We’re doing this for good customer service,” the mayor said. “The majority of our citizens are students and we want them to look back positively on their experience and their quality of life is key to that.”
Jackson said the city is proposing the Apartment Owners Association, where the property owners of potential student housing could collaborate to make the listings as helpful as possible.”
Many felt this was important because different students have different needs and reasons for wanting to obtain the type of housing they end up paying for.
“We all have different things that we enjoy,” said Sarah Thieme, manager of the Brooks Landings apartments. “Our students like that our apartments are unfurnished, but plenty of others like having furnished apartments. And then some students have special situations such as being in a marriage or are from out of state that do not want to move every year or pay storage fees.”