The Contraband

Issue date: 10/27/04 Section: Opinion

As a resident of Pinehaven student housing, I am appauled by the state of the apartments. I have lived here for only two months now and have seen more wrongdoings than anywhere else I have lived. We have a lack of many basic safety and sanitary needs. Only the apartments facing McNeese street get adequate care and maintenance, or so it appears. Those apartments get cut grass, child protection of the stairways rails, and fresh paint. Those of us in the back, get none of these things. Our playground has equipment that has missing pieces, grass that grows over the childrens knees, and ant piles that harbor fire ants. More often than not, our children get hurt by the lack of care and upkeep of the facility. Here, we have no emergency call boxes, constant police patrols, or nice vinyl siding. Here we have black mold on the walls, underlit common areas, bleak corridors, and leaky faucets. This appears to be very similar to tenements in the Soviet Union. In the past and the recent past, there has been more occurences of daytime home invasions, assaults, attempted rapes, and thefts. Why do we not get the same quality of life as students living in the newer dorms? Why do we not have call boxes or adequate police presence and protection? Is it because maybe the administration believes that single mothers are less likely to get raped? Is it because we are less likely to get robbed because of the horrific look of the exterior? We pay rent and tuition too, we are also humans just like the other students. Why let them live in nice surroundings, and force us to live like dogs? They say that there isn't enough money to fix everything; but there is enough money to rectify brick walls. It stinks that a brick wall is more important than the safety and quality of life of our students.

Jake Mathis
MSU Student

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