Alicia Santiago, a third-year journalism and public relations student,wrote about how the university does not do a good job advertising affordable housing options for students. The issue first came to her attention, she said, when she began looking for housing at the end of her first year. However, Santiago realized while writing this story that the issue goes beyond undergraduate students.

“This issue is a lot larger than just me and the people I surround myself with,” Santiago said. She went on to cite the different struggles graduate employees faced when seeking housing, such as how Graduate Village was turned into quarantine rooms during the pandemic, limiting  GEs’ options for affordable housing, Santiago said.

“GEs get talked about so often in the GTFF conversation but not as much about their everyday life,” she said. Santiago hopes that the article pushes UO administration to consider which housing options it should prioritize advertising to students.

Santiago has been a news reporter for the Daily Emerald since summer of 2022 and this is her second cover story.