The Young America apartment management company is offering around 100 vacant beds rent-free to Illinois State University students displaced by the coronavirus.
ISU announced Wednesday its dorms would remain closed. ISU students were asked to stay at their permanent home residences until further notice, and students now living in residence halls should return to their permanent home residences.
In response, Young America will offer free temporary housing on a week-by-week basis until the dorms reopen or the spring semester ends. The 100 beds are in fully empty but furnished units.
Space is limited and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We realize that yesterday’s news may not have been ideal for everybody, and we’re hopeful we can mitigate some of the stresses that some students are experiencing,” Young America general manager Andy Netzer told WGLT on Thursday.
Netzer said international students may be the best fit for the assistance.
“That’s who in my mind we’d be serving,” Netzer said. “Certainly there can be other students from any community domestically—the Chicago suburbs or otherwise. Maybe they’re nontraditional students but still living in the dorms. Maybe they just don’t have a great family life to fall back on, and it’s not a reasonable option for them. We’d be happy to have them as well.”
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