After searching Craigslist for six months, Jill Coyle found a place to live - and then had to threaten to sue for discrimination to sign the lease for her house in the nearby AU Park neighborhood.
"[The owner] wouldn't let us rent from her because she was so anti-student," Coyle, a junior in the School of Communication, said.
Coyle and her roommates, one a student at Georgetown and the other at George Washington, eventually signed a two-year lease for the home.
To help students before they face problems like Coyle's, the Office of Housing and Dining is currently looking to create a contract with a company that works with landlords to help students find off-campus housing, according to Student Government President Ashley Mushnick.
"Living off campus has lots of uncertainties involved and this is one way we're going to try to relieve some of those uncertainties," Mushnick, who has been working with Housing and Dining since August, said. "Right now if you look for off-campus housing, it's a risky process."
Mushnick said the final contract will be signed in the spring.
The contracted company will gather information about housing where AU students would want to live and post it on its Web site for students to view, she said.
"As long as it doesn't add too many levels and make it more cumbersome and problematic, it would be a really good thing to have," Michael Prather, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, said.
Prather said he moved to the Berkshires because of convenience. When signing the lease he said there were things he didn't fully understand, but didn't ask about because he felt like he should know.
"There are some things that are kind of confusing and you don't really understand but you just kind of go with it," he said.
Georgetown and GW already have such programs in place.
"It needs to be part of the university infrastructure," Mushnick said.
Prather said it is almost impossible to do everything it takes to find off-campus housing without taking a whole semester to do so.
The university will hold information sessions about off-campus housing in the spring. Mushnick said she hopes financial aid and student activities will also be part of the sessions. These sessions will teach students how to use their financial aid to pay for their off-campus housing.
Students can receive money to pay for off-campus housing if their financial aid packages exceed tuition costs, she said.
Students will also be given a guide of District housing laws.
"A lot of students just don't know a lot about housing laws in D.C.," Mushnick said.
Off-campus housing support was part of Mushnick's platform when running for SG president, since Park Bethesda didn't have the advantages of off-campus housing, she said. According to Mushnick, it was expensive, not near a Metro station and had an unreliable shuttle service.
Mushnick said she has heard about problems with AU not having housing options for graduate students.
"I've heard graduate students might not choose to go here because they have no idea what to do in terms of housing," she said.
Housing and Dining recognized the need to come up with something new, Mushnick said.
"I think this is a huge improvement," she said. "Georgetown and GW have been enjoying these types of resources for a long time and now AU students can enjoy them as well"
